Gryphon rugby women drop national bronze-medal match

QUEBEC CITY – The Guelph Gryphons yielded five consecutive tries as they suffered a 36-13 loss to the Queen’s Gaels in the season-ending bronze-medal match at the U Sports national women’s rugby championship tournament Sunday.

The Gryphs opened the scoring in the medal match with a penalty kick nine minutes into the game. The Gaels started their streak of tries 12 minutes later.

Queen’s led 19-3 at halftime and expanded that lead to 36-3 by the game’s one-hour mark.

The Gryphs closed the gap with three tries in the final 17 minutes.

Abby Auger, Maddy Hobson and JillianBernard-Justice each had a try for Guelph while Tausani Levale added a penalty kick and a convert.

Carmen Izyk and Jaden Walker each scored a pair of tries for Queen’s while Lizzie Gibson scored a try, a penalty kick and four converts.

The Gryphs finish their season with an overall 7-4 record. They’d been 5-1 in OUA league play and had two wins and three losses in the playoffs, three of Guelph’s losses during the season were to the Gaels.

It was the second consecutive year the Gryphs lost the national bronze-medal game. They last won a national medal in 2018 when they were the silver medalists.

• Guelph Sports Journal