It was a silver lining for Canada at the IFAF women’s world tackle football championships.
Despite being the first team to score on the United States at the six-team, three-day championships last week at Langley’s McLeod Athletic Park, the Canadians came up short, falling 41-16 in the gold-medal game on Friday (June 30).
Canada took an early lead, 3-0, on Carly Dyck’s 37-yard field goal.
But the U.S. responded with a pair of touchdown catches from Jeannette Gray to close the quarter.
The first was a eight-yard pass form quarterback Sami Grisafe while the other was a 71-yard bomb from receiver Angela Barker.
Odessa Jenkins scored from one-yard out in the second quarter to make it 21-3 before Canada gained some momentum with a 39-yard touchdown pass late in the first half from quarterback Aimee Kowalski to her sister Alex to make the score 21-9 at the half.
The U.S. made it 27-9 on an 11-yard touchdown run from Lisa Horton before Canada’s Rebekah Heninger scored on a 67-yard fumble return early in the fourth quarter to make it 27-16.
But Alexis Snyder (15 yards) and Hannah DeGaffinred (eight yards) each scored rushing touchdowns to round out the win.
“(The U.S.) are a very balanced team so depending on what kind of situations we’re in defensively, they can run the ball and they can throw the ball,” said Canadian coach Jeff Yausie.
“That’s the sign of a good team and a well-coached team — they took what we were giving them.”
“Canada did a good job — they jumped on us when we made mistakes and that happened multiple times,” said U.S. coach Jim Farrell.
“They’re a good team and every time we were undisciplined or we got out of our alignment assignment football, they took advantage of it.
“Canada is on the rise and they’re a great program and very well coached. Their players gave us all we could handle.”
