SUMMERSIDE, P.E.I. — There is extra excitement in the air around Three Oaks Senior High School this week.
That’s because the Axemen and Axewomen AAA teams are hosting the 23rd annual David Voye Memorial rugby tournament this weekend.
“It means a lot to everybody (to play in this tournament),” said 18-year-old Dexter Stewart, a Grade 12 inside centre with the James Voye-coached Axemen. “Not only is it our home tournament, but also what it represents – it is in memory of our coach’s father.
“It’s a really big deal and makes us play that much harder.”
The tournament, which honours the memory of a former music teacher and a driving force behind the formation of the rugby program at Three Oaks, will feature 17 teams – 11 girls and six boys – from P.E.I. and Nova Scotia.
“I’m really excited,” said Axewomen fullback Carly MacKenzie. “It’s a very good tournament and it brings the community together.
“It’s a really good time for our school. Everyone is volunteering, will be out watching and having a great time.”
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First games
The two Three Oaks teams open tournament play Friday with back-to-back games at the Canada Games pitch on the grounds of the Summerside-based school. The Axemen face Charlottetown’s Colonel Gray Colonels at 3 p.m., followed by the Axewomen’s contest versus Cobequid Educational Centre from Truro, N.S., at 4 p.m.
“We are all really excited and looking to bring home the win,” said Axewomen senior flanker Madison Kelly-Maund, 17. “We really want to make our school proud and we are hoping to get some good crowds.”
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Both Three Oaks teams are 2-0 (won-lost) in P.E.I. School Athletic Association senior AAA league play after wins over Montague and Westisle.
“Our forwards are really strong, our backs are really fast, we have a lot of smart players and a lot of returning forwards helps with organization and getting the team together,” said Caleb Dawson, who plays the standoff position.
“I really like the guys we have and we really click well,” said Stewart. “We played better than everybody expected in Rothesay.” Asked to comment on the make-up of this year’s team, Stewart noted the Axemen will look to take advantage of its size.
“We have a big team of forwards and a lot of big guys up front. The forwards pound it up the middle and we also have a lot of quick backs and when we are able to swing it out wide we can definitely beat people that way.”
Dawson, 17, feels the Axemen can be successful playing either low- or high-scoring games.
“We definitely could be both depending on who we are playing,” he added. “If it’s a forwards game it will be a low-scoring game, but if we can get it out to the backs we can definitely score a lot of trys.”
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Axewomen
MacKenzie noted the Axewomen’s 1-2 showing at RugbyFest was a learning experience.
“We are definitely going to have work hard on defence making sure we are coming up to meet them and really making all the tackles right away,” said MacKenzie, 17. “As long as we play really strong defence we hopefully will get to play a lot of offence, which is our strong point.”
Kelly-Maund added: “We physically are a small team. We do play against teams who are physically stronger, but we are athletic and fast.
“Our keys are to play the best offence we can and really get our line speed up on defence so we can meet them so those strong girls aren’t coming up and breaking through our lines.”
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