Ladysmith’s McKenzie Saysell has been invited to join B.C.’s top 16-and-under women’s rugby team when the 2013 National Festival of Rugby scrums its way onto the University of British Columbia campus Aug. 7-13.
The 15-year-old flanker first learned she’d been selected to the “U16” squad July 30, she said, following the second of two tryout sessions she’d attended in late July.
Saysell and her U16 provincial teammates will practise together for the very first time Aug. 6, she said, and tournament play begins the following day.
Saysell is no stranger to top-tier competition. Through her time spent with both the Cowichan Rugby Club and Ladysmith Secondary School’s girls’ team, Saysell earned a spot on the U18 Women’s Tsunami — Vancouver Island’s regional team — two years in a row, winning silver medals at the provincial championships in 2012 and 2013.
When Tsunami fielded its first U16 women’s team this year, Saysell and her teammates earned their first provincial gold in early July.
When Saysell discovered she’d been named to BC’s “Gold” squad, she reacted with “tears of joy,” she said, adding: “I didn’t think I’d ever make it this far.”
See next week’s Chronicle for more.
