Gaels blow away Axewomen to advance to national semifinals
The No. 2 seeded Queen’s Gaels cruised to a berth in the national semifinals as they downed the No. 7 seed Acadia Axewomen, 90-10, in the third quarterfinal of the 2025 CGIS U SPORTS Women’s Rugby Championship, Presented by The Rec Room Granville at Thunderbird Stadium, Wednesday.
Acadia actually opened the scoring on a try from Samantha Reid in the second minute. However, that was as good as it got for the AUS finalists, as the Gaels responded with 28 unanswered points to open a 28-5 lead after the 26th minute. Sarah Williston of the Axemen scored at the half-hour mark, but tries by Madi Thompson and Lizzie Gibson just before the halftime whistle put the OUA champions up 38-10 at halftime.
In the second half, the Gaels storm continued as they rained eight tries and six conversions on the Axewomen.
Veteran flanker Lizzie Gibson led the Gaels with 22 points on two tries and six conversions. Kennedi Stevenson, Madison Jumeau and Mika Matsukubo also had a pair of tries each, while Mya Brubacher, Olivia Dibua, Madi Thompson, Jayne Armatage, Brynn Jenkins and Drew Spencer each scored one. Four conversions by Tatum Lougheed rounded out the Gaels scoring.
Gibson won player-of-the-game honours for Queen’s, while Juliette Matsukubo got the nod for Acadia.
Queen’s will face either UBC or Laval in Friday’s second semifinal, set for 6:30 p.m. Pacific time. Acadia will head to a consolation game, set for 1:30 p.m. on Friday.
Nike Team Players of the Game
QUE Lizzie Gibson
ACA Juliette Matsukubo
Scoring summary
FIRST HALF
2’ ACA Try Samantha Reid (conversion failed) 0-5
5’ QUE Try Madison Jumeau (Lizzie Gibson conversion) 7-5
13’ QUE Try Madison Jumeau (Lizzie Gibson conversion) 14-5
21’ QUE Try Mika Matsukubo (Lizzie Gibson conversion) 21-5
25’ QUE Try Maya Brubacher (Lizzie Gibson conversion) 28-5
30’ ACA Try Sarah Willison (conversion failed) 28-10
35’ QUE Try Madi Thompson (conversion failed) 33-10
35’ QUE Try Lizzie Gibson (conversion failed) 38-10
SECOND HALF
37’ QUE Try Kennedi Stevenson (conversion failed) 43-10
41’ QUE Try Jayne Armatage (Lizzie Gibson conversion) 50-10
46’ QUE Try Mika Matsukubo (conversion failed) 55-10
49’ QUE Try Lizzie Gibson (Lizzie Gibson conversion) 62-10
54’ QUE Try Brynn Jenkins (Tatum Lougheed conversion) 69-10
60’ QUE Try Olivia Dibua (Tatum Lougheed conversion) 76-10
64’ QUE Try Kennedi Stevenson (Tatum Lougheed conversion) 83-10
68’ QUE Try Drew Spencer (Tatum Lougheed conversion) 90-10