LONDON, Ont. – On a cold and wet day at Alumni Field the Western Mustangs women's rugby team overcame the York Lions for a 37-17 win to pick up the team's second victory of the 2013 season.
It's the second win this week for the Mustangs as they defeated the Brock Badgers 52-0 on Wednesday night in the team's first game at Alumni Field. Western now holds a 2-1 record and is tied with Waterloo for second place in the OUA's Shiels Division. York falls to 1-2 on the year and hold down third spot in the Russell Division.
The Mustangs put the pressure on early as a missed catch by York off the kickoff allowed Western's Breanne Nicholas to charge deep into York's end where the play remained until a pass from Nicholas to Under-21 National team member Danielle Spice gave Western the first try of the game with just 5 minutes on the clock. Both teams fought hard as play was dispersed evenly along both ends until a few penalties against Western allowed York to respond with a try of their own. Both teams traded points for the rest of the half as each squad posted two tries without conversions to set the score at an even 10-10 at the end of the first half.
The second half was a different story for the Mustangs as they dominated with back-to-back tries less than three minutes apart from Andrea Bowra and Meaghan Buitinga. Buitinga added the convert on both to give the Purple and White a 23-10 lead. The second half saw well-executed offloads by the Mustangs, which enabled strong field distribution and a difficult to defend offence. Spice posted three tries on the day while impenetrable defence by the Mustangs managed to keep the Lions off the scoreboard for almost the entire half until York added a try and conversion with less than two minutes left of play to set the final score at 37-17 for the Mustangs.
Mustangs head coach Natascha Wesch was happy with the team's performance in the second half; "we had a slow start and it was hard to get our feet going but once we settled in we felt much more comfortable," said Wesch. "We played half our season in one week so we're glad to get through it and we're looking forward to next weekend."
Western returns to the pitch on Homecoming weekend as they host the Waterloo Warriors on Saturday, September 28. Game time is set for 11:00 a.m.
