Burnaby Lake’s Stu Vincent celebrated his first-ever senior cup with a five-try performance in the Ceili’s Cup men’s first division rugby final.
The English import ran in the team’s first five scores in a dominating 48-10 victory over the defending champion University of Victoria Norsemen at Klahanie Park on Saturday.
The provincial title was the second-ever for the 13-1 Div. 1 league champions. The first came in 2011.
The all-blue was quick up on its defensive marking all day, allowing the UVic students little momentum in attack.
What the Islanders did get was largely due to the play of scrum half Crosby Stewart and standoff half Connor Llewellyn.
Giuseppe Laudisio, who had a career seven tries earlier in the season against the Meralomas, and former Canadian and World Cup international Mike James nearly broke free of would-be tacklers to get the ball within 10 metres of the line.
But Stewart broke a long run, and only a clever play by Laudisio, who stripped the ball with a try-saving tackle early in the game, saved an early UVic try.
The Lakers got back the ball and the momentum and quickly replied with the first of Vincent’s five tries, the first two in the exact same right corner of the end zone. Burnaby Lake led 15-5 at the interval.
“Each time we attacked with the ball, whether if was two, three, four, or five metres, we were consistently going over that gain line,” said Vincent, who played with nine stitches to his head from last week’s semifinal. “That’s where the heart came from.”
That heart was evident all over the pitch, as Burnaby continually challenged the UVic tackling with punishing attacks and a first-to-the-breakdown mentality.
The toll it took on the Island visitors was clearly evident early in the second half, when Vincent picked up where he left off in the first, hoofing it 65 metres for his fourth try of the game. He then finished off a nice setup by fullback Nolan Shelley before leaving the game with Burnaby up 27-5.
In the late stages of the match, the Lakers rarely took their collective foot off the pedal, running in three more tries before the day was done. UVic, to its credit, continued to battle, scoring a late try.
“We’ve been focusing on defence all week. There is so much heart. There are 15 players for every man on the pitch,” Vincent added.
