Copyright Caledonia Courier
To be the best, you have to beat the best. And taking down the top three seeds – all of which were undefeated – gives the UBC Thunderbirds’ women’s rugby 15s squad bragging rights on being the champs for another year. The T-Birds – whose lineup features Coldstream’s Mya Koleba – celebrated a second straight U-SPORTS women’s rugby 15s national championship, capturing the title with epic victories over the top three seeds in the eight-team event. All eight teams competing were gold- and silver-medal winners from the nation’s four conferences. UBC – silver medalists from the Canada West conference, and seeded No. 6 – opened the tournament against the unbeaten third seeds, the Laval Rouge Et Or from Quebec. The Rouge Et Or won the RSEQ Conference (Réseau du Sports Étudiant du Québec) and were looking for their fourth national title in six years. Laval beat UBC at home in the national quarterfinal two years ago, 7-5. It was UBC who would prevail in the 2025 U-SPORTS quarters, downing Laval handily 32-10. That set up a semifinal against the second-seeded Queen’s Golden Gaels from the Ontario University Athletics Conference, who entered the game with UBC 9-0, and were coming off their third OUA banner in the last four years. The fans at Thunderbird Stadium were treated to a heart-in-mouth finish in the U SPORTS semifinals, as UBC and Queen’s battled it out to the final seconds in a physical, dramatic matchup, with Koleba and the T-Birds hanging on for a 20-14 decision. Like their quarterfinal against Laval, the T-Birds took the lead early and didn’t relinquish it the rest of the way. But unlike Wednesday night, the match hung in the balance all the way to the end, with the Thunderbirds putting up a desperate defensive stand on their own goal line in the final play of the night to preserve a six-point win. The final was an all-B.C. affair with UBC taking on the only team to beat them in 2025, the top-ranked University of Victoria Vikes, who were 9-0 entering the game, with three straight wins over UBC on the year, including the Canada West Championship, 18-17. Down by three in the final minute of the match, the Thunderbirds again managed to find a way to win the title game, 15-13. “I want to start off by saying that UVIC is an absolutely outstanding team,” said UBC head coach Dean Murten. “They’ve got some world-class players, they’re well-coached, they’re aggressive defensively and I knew it was going to come down to the wire, but not the last play of the game, absolutely not.” With the clock ticking towards 70 minutes (end of regulation time), UBC had the ball to within 20 yards of the try zone. With the ball swung out to their captain, Piper Logan made a beautiful play to suck in the defence and then fire a skip pass all the way to the sideline to Adia Pye. The speedy winger had the wheels to reach the try zone untouched, scoring the winning points on the final play of the match. The decisive play sparked jubilation on the pitch and in the stands, as the Thunderbirds lifted the Monilex Trophy for the second time in program history, and second time in as many years. UBC is one of only two programs to win back-to-back national titles in the last 15 years, joining Laval in that exclusive club. It is Koleba’s second national title.
