Calgary to face Ottawa after beating Acadia in women’s rugby quarters

VICTORIA – Temitope Ogunjimi scored four tries and the Calgary Dinos held the Acadia Axewomen off the board until the final minutes to open the Canadian university women’s rugby championship with a 42-10 victory on Thursday.

The win advanced Calgary to the semifinals on Friday against Ottawa, 25-19 winners over McMaster in one of Thursday’s other quarter-finals.

Temitope scored two tries in the first and two more in the second half before coming off the field.

“She’s definitely a player that makes coaches look good,” said Calgary Dinos head coach Simon Chi. “She does a lot of things and makes big players just on her individual athleticism and they came at an opportune time in the game. Credit to her as an athlete she did those things on her own.”

Acadia’s Sara Baxter ran in a pair of tries late to give the Axewomen their first points of the game.

Ottawa came away with a victory for the first time over McMaster after facing the Marauders in three straight years at the women’s rugby championship.

“This is the third championship in a row that we’ve played Ottawa and now the combined point difference isn’t over five points,” said McMaster head coach Shaun Allen. “We are two physical teams that are willing to battle it out, and they got the better of us today.”

In other quarter-final action, the StFX X-Women beat the Concordia Stingers 24-17 with a penalty try in the final two minutes of the game.

Danielle Cormier, Ellen Murphy and Joanna Alphonso also scores tries for StFX while Frederique Rajotte Mercedes Martino and Alexandra Tessier had tries for Concordia.

The X-Women will play Guelph in Friday’s second semifinal after the Gryphons beat the Victoria Vikes 33-27.

Alex King led Guelph with four tries and four converts.

Acadia will play McMaster and Concordia will face Victoria on Saturday in consolation play. The finals go Sunday.