Several young rugby players with roots in the Cowichan Valley will be busy this weekend as they don Team BC kits for several games against teams from other provinces.
The Valley will be represented on two different teams at the Western Championships in Kelowna as B.C. provincial teams take on squads of players selected from across the Prairie provinces.
The Western Championships replace the National Championships of previous years, although players from the Westerns will be invited to national team camps and West vs. East competitions.
B.C.’s U18 women’s side will include Brentwood College players Avi Sharabi, Ciel Arbour-Boehme, Delaney Martin and McKenna Haz, and Emily Lindsay, Hannah Morten and Mariah Fontana from Cowichan Secondary.
The U16 men’s team will include Shawnigan Lake School students Jim Newman and Jonny Hodgkins, as well as Brentwood’s Harrison Hooke.
The U16 men play at 2:30 p.m. on Friday and the U18 women play at 4 p.m. in games that will be streamed live at bcrugby.ca
Meanwhile, BC Rugby is sending teams from the age levels not represented at the Western Championships on a trip to Ottawa for a two-game series against Ontario sides.
Brentwood’s Denise Roy will make that trip with the U16 women, while the U17 men will include Cow High’s Peyton Eagar and Kyle Joe, Frances Kelsey’s Karl Mattison, Shawnigan’s Nicolas Mouret and Seth Purdey and Ladysmith’s Taylor de Souza.
