Grant-A-Week WINNER
Jessica Lapelle - Rugby

My name is Jessica Lapelle and I am a second year sports management student at Brock University. I've played many sports at various levels but none can compare to rugby. My first rugby experience occurred in high school. Some friends of mine (teammates from the basketball team) convinced me to try out. Our high school rugby team was a varsity league and I was in grade ten playing with mainly seniors.

For my first game our coach put me on the wing and asked me "what are you going to do?" I didn't have the slightest clue what to answer. So as I stared at him blankly, he looked me in the eye, pointed at the end line and said, "score tries!" And that was exactly what I did.

For the following three consecutive seasons I was awarded MVP for my high school team and we participated at OFSSA each year. In the last two years of high school I was the backs captain. As time went on, the more I played, the more I grew to love the game. I also noticed that I was gradually beginning to focus more and more of my extra curricular time on rugby. My high school coach is also the coach for Ottawa Irish Rugby Club so I decided to take my game to the next level and joined. Little did I know that I was joining a team with great depth and strength. Many of my teammates also play at the regional representative level, provincial, and national level.

There was so much for me to learn and luckily so many people willing to teach me. The Ottawa Irish 'opened the door for me' and introduced me to the Quebec junior's coach. Quebec won the provincial tournament that year (1999). I got lots of playing time at full back and started in the final match against Ontario. In only 5 years of being involved in the sport, I've played in 6 Ruby teams. These include; St. Paul's High school, the Ottawa Irish, Quebec juniors, Eastern Ontario, Quebec senior developmental, and most recently - Brock University.

This season I unfortunate enough to suffer a second degree Medial Co-lateral Ligament (MCL) stain on my left knee. But, despite the injury I have been working diligently to get back to playing and will be fully recovered in time for the university season. Brock is a very young team with lots of potential and I am very excited to be part of such a team. I am prepared to step up and be an intricate part of the team's development.

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