A Williams Lake high school rugby player is seeing success at the national level.
The journey began in January of 2017 over the course of two days in Delta where Emma Feldinger was selected from a large group of girls at the BC Elite Sevens tryouts among players from the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island, the Fraser Valley, Kamloops and Prince Rupert.
Once selected, throughout the course of the winter, practices were scheduled in the Lower Mainland, however, with all of the season’s snowfall, they were forced to be cancelled.
“The tryouts were really intense and the work that we had to do on our own due to the weather made things very difficult,” Feldinger said.
The first time the team played together was at the Las Vegas International Sevens tournament from March 2-4 and, on March 5, 12 players including Feldinger, were selected to represent B.C. in the Canadian Rugby Sevens Under-18 Championships March 9-10.
Day one of nationals was played at Connaught Park in Vancouver where B.C. went undefeated to finish at the top of its pool.
Day two took place at the Burnaby Rugby Fields where, again, B.C. went unbeaten giving Feldinger and her teammates the opportunity to face Ontario at BC Place during the HSBC Men’s Vancouver International Sevens Tournament in front of roughly 33,000 rugby fans.
There, they defeated the Ontario squad 12-5 to claim the gold medal which, Feldinger said, was a truly exciting experience for a girl from Alexis Creek.
“The matches that we played at National Championships were hard as you are playing against the top players from across Canada,” Feldinger said. “I was fortunate enough to have played with my teammates before so we were able to quickly gel and knew the strengths and weaknesses of each other.
“Stepping on the pitch at BC Place with thousands of people in the stands was quite the experience which I won’t forget any time soon. Believe it or not, when I was playing I was so focused on the game I didn’t hear any of the crowd cheering. Despite all the hard work I would do it again in a second as it was well worth it in the end.”
BC Sevens U18 women’s next tournament will be in July for the Victoria Sevens.
In the meantime, players will be focusing on continued training, as well as playing with their respective high schools in the sevens provincials in April and 15s provincials in May where Feldinger will be looked upon as a leader for the Lake City Falcons.
Following the National Sevens Championships, Feldinger also spent the next seven days in Burnaby at a Rugby Canada camp as one of the top 40 players from across Canada for women’s under-18 15-a-side rugby.