Jon Maillet For the Journal
Two Lambton County athletes were on hand to compete at the 2023 Raymond James Canadian University Men’s Rugby Championships this past weekend in Langley, B.C.
Point Edward native Daniel Luciani won bronze with the Guelph Gryphons, while Bright’s Grove’s Wade Marshall, a graduate of St. Pat’s, placed seventh with the Ottawa Gee Gees.
Both Luciani and Marshall, who grew up playing Valhalla Basketball together as kids, and then Sarnia Saints Rugby, are graduating from University this year.
“Obviously not what we wanted,” Luciani said of the Gryphons’ third-place finish. “Still happy to come home with hardware; third place in the country is still very good and we are all happy with that.”
The Gryphons, who had just won their OUA final the week before the tournament began, had a quick turnaround before heading to the tournament, hosted by Trinity Western University at Willoughby Community Park Stadium.
“You usually get a week between games,” Luciani told The Journal. “We played our finals on a Thursday and flew out on a Monday for the Nationals, so we didn’t really have a lot of time for a quick turnaround but I think we did pretty well with the guys giving it their all.”
The Gryphons played a total of four games in 11 days — kicking off the tournament with a 12-10 win over the host Trinity Western Spartans, despite being down 10-0 in the second half.
Guelph scored a try at the 46:55 mark to cut the TWU lead to 10-5, then picked up the convert to make it 10-7.
“We worked the ball down the field again; we thought we scored twice but they were called back to previous penalties,” Luciani said of the quarter-final game. “We were on the five-yard line for a couple minutes, our nine passed it to our number nine man, and he bridge-balled it to Kobe Faust, who did a diving try over the sideline to send us to the next round.”
In the semi-finals, Guelph took on the No. 1 ranked UBC Thunderbirds, getting on the board first 7-0. UBC tied the game at 7-7, then added a couple of penalty kicks to take a 13-7 before the end of the first half.
The Gryphons managed to cut the UBC lead to 13-10 but that would be as close as Guelph would get.
UBC would rattle off 17 unanswered points enroute to a 30-10 final, sending the Thunderbirds to the championship game. They went on to secure a third-straight Rugby Nationals title with a dominant 41-7 win over the 2nd ranked Victoria Vikes
In Sunday’s bronze medal game, Luciani and the No. 4 ranked Gryphons face the Memorial Sea Hawks, capturing the medal with a dominant performance.
“We all came into the game pretty beat up,” Luciani said. “We looked at it like, one last shift, just stick it to them.
“We punched first and then just held them to no tries until late in the second half, not giving them a chance to get back into the fight.”
Guelph held a 19-0 lead heading into the second half, and finished the game with a 38-12 final.
“I think it shows resilience and a bit of grit,” said Luciani on his team's ability to push through injuries and fatigue having played so many games in a short timespan.
“All 26 guys that came with us to Nationals, putting a hell of a shift in, putting the body out there and making every tackle you can. Holding ourselves accountable to our own team standards, it shows how bad we want it.”
Meanwhile, Wade Marshall and the Ottawa Gee Gees would suffer back-to-back losses before winning the 7th place match against the Prairies Champion Calgary Dinos in a convincing 44-0 shut-out.