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www.insidehalton.com |OAKVILLE BEAVER | Friday, July 21, 2017 |20 Valley leaves OT rugby dynasty to coach Queen's Gaels women By Herb Garbutt Oakville Beaver staff W hen the Oakville Trafalgar Red Devils w on their sixth Halton title in nine years, a question was posed to coach Dan Valley. Was the Oakville Trafalgar girls' rugby team a dynasty? "I think they have to put a string together," he said. "They're not there yet but all the building blocks are here." That 2008 victory w ould turn out to be the first of 10 straight Halton titles for the Red Devils. So w hen Valley was asked the same question after this season' s Ontario Federation of School Ath letic Associations championship -- OT' s third in six years -- he laughed. "Yeah, I think w e might be there now," he said. N ext season, a key building block will not be, though. Val ley, a co-founder of the OT girls' program, has accepted the head Oakville Trafalgar girls rugby coach Dan Valley has been hired to coach the Queen's Gaels women's rugby team. Valley led OT to three Ontario titles and six OFSAA medals in the past seven years. | photo by Nikki Wesley - Oakville Beaver coaching job with the Queen' s Gaels w om en' s rugby team. "It' s been a goal of m ine to be in a situation where I could coach pro fessionally for a living," Valley said. "W hen this opportunity came up, I put m y hand up and fortunately they chose m e." It will be Valley' s second Ontario university head coaching job. He was named the Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Shields Division coach of the year in 2008 follow ing his first season as coach of the Brock Badgers. He left the team af ter his second season to go to the University of Queensland in Aus tralia to complete his Master of Sport Coaching. He has served as an assistant coach at McMaster for the past three years, helping the Marauders w in the national title in 2015, coin cidentally, over Queen' s. Valley has also been the head coach of Rugby Canada' s girls' under-18 program since it was estab lished three years ago. At Queen' s, the Oakville na tive inherits a team that has gone 11-4 over the past three seasons, including an OUA championship in 2014. The team includes former OT captain Sadie Stephenson as w ell as incom ing freshmen Thea W hite and Simone Oliveira, w ho were part of this year' s Red Devils' OFSAA championship team. "It' s a great situation because you're not rebuilding. It' s more re shaping," Valley said. "It' s exciting to see what w e can do w ith an al ready exceptional group. Hopefully w e can w in som e championships and put as many Queen' s players on the national team as w e can." That' s exactly what h e' s done at Oakville Trafalgar, where he built the girls' rugby program into a pro Uncial powerhouse. Since 2010, OT finished in the top four in the province seven times in eight years. That included six OFSAA medals (three gold, two silver and a bronze) in the last seven years. Still, he said the decision to leave Oakville Trafalgar was an em otion al one. "It' s almost 20 years for m e, first as a student, then a teacher, then a coach. I'll always look at OT as a special place," he said. "It was really a springboard to all these other awesome opportunities, and that' s all a result of that program. I'm not here today w ithout all the work those athletes did with that program." Titans oust Velocity in Sr. B lacrosse Regular-season scoring champ Brendan Muise had three goals and three assists last Sunday to lead the Oakville Titans to a seriesclinching 13-10 win over the K-W Velocity. Trailing 3-1, Oakville scored seven straight goals on its way to com pleting a two-game sweep of the best-of-three On tario Senior B Lacrosse League series. Joe French and Nolan Apers scored 31 seconds apart to start the rally and tie the game 3-3. Muise and Ryan Callaghan scored power-play goals before the end of the period and A nthony Smitheram kept things rolling w ith a goal in the opening m inute of the second period. A four-goal run by K-W m idway through the third pulled the Velocity w ithin two at 10-8, but the Titans held on for the win. French had two goals and two assists and Eddie Renaud and Apers also scored twice. Callaghan had a goal and two assists and N ick Rybka and Keyan M cQueen had the other goals. Gage Board and Chris Lopes each had two assists. Oakville scored 11 times in the third pe riod to take the opening game of the series 17-7. Board and French each had five goals for the Titans w hile Callaghan had three goals and two assists. Muise, Rybka, Lopes and Cam Mancini had Oakville' s other goals. Board, Muise and Apers each had four assists and French, Rybka and Lopes had three apiece. Callaghan and Reed Board had two each. The Titans will now play the Owen Sound North Stars in the semifinals. Game 1 in the best-of-five series is tomorrow (Saturday) in Owen Sound and Game 2 is Sunday at 7 p.m. at the Toronto Rock Athletic Centre. Canada in W bm en's Lacrosse World Cup final Saturday Canada edged Australia 8-6 in overtime yes Tuesday, scoring five straight goals to over terday (Thursday) to advance to the champi com e an early 3-1 deficit and finish pool play onship game at the W om en' s Lacrosse World with a 4-1 record. Cup. Canada opened the tournament by scor Canada, including Oakville' s Claire Mills, ing four unanswered goals to down Australia 9-5. It then opened up a 6-1 will play either the United lead on Wales the following States or England for the gold day on its way to a 10-6 vic medal Saturday. tory. Canada led 8-2 at the half Canada' s Dana Dobbie FIL in a 16-7 w in over Scotland. scored the tying goal w ith 2:41 Rothbones to play. Canada led throughout The Canadians suffered WOMENS Thursday' s semifinal until Aus their first loss Sunday, 17-3, LACROSSE ENGLAND W O RLD CUP tralia took the lead with 4:20 at the hands of the defending to play. champion United States. Canada' s Megan Kinna then Mills, 16, is the secondscored with 18 seconds left in the first over youngest player on the Canadian team. time and Alie Jimerson added an insurance Canada has w on medals at the past two goal in the second extra period. World Cups, finishing third in 2009 and tak Canada defeated N ew Zealand 16-1 in the ing silver w hen it hosted in 2013. Canada has never finished lower than fifth since the tour quarter-finals Wednesday. nament was established in 1982. 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