Klassen set to batttle with Team Manitoba

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This article was published 06/08/2018 (2101 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A busy three-sport athlete at Steinbach Regional Secondary School, Steinbach’s Breanne Klassen has parlayed her love of rugby into a berth on the Manitoba U18 provincial team.

Klassen, who also plays basketball and soccer for the SRSS Sabres and is entering grade 12 in the fall at the school, admits unabashedly, that rugby is her preferred sport.

When asked why, she said with a grin, “I like hitting people,” (on the rugby pitch that it is). She also likes the camaraderie with the girls in playing a team sport like rugby and the fact she has the opportunity to get to know her teammates from across the province because of her involvement in Team Manitoba.

Klassen was recently named to Team Manitoba when the final roster was announced following several weeks of tryouts and training camps.

The Manitoba Buffalo U18 Women’s program, as they are known, is the high performance provincial program for U18 female rugby players across Manitoba. It is designed to develop and showcase athletes for the U18 Canadian National programs.

This year the Manitoba Junior Buffalo U18 Women will compete at the Western Canadian Rugby Championships in Winnipeg, being hosted this week, August 9-12 at Maple Grove Rugby Park.

Klassen got hooked on rugby when a team was started at the SRSS two years ago as they play against predominantly Winnipeg schools. The school rugby program runs in May and June and she plans to play one more year of high school rugby in her grade 12 year next spring.

She has excelled with the Sabres rugby program. In fact she was one of only two players from the Sabres this year selected to the high school rugby all-star team.

And while she focuses on the rugby training, practices and games, she is also astute in the classroom as she has maintained an 85% average.

But in the meantime she is also kept busy playing on a senior women’s team in Winnipeg this summer called the Brumbies, in addition to her training regimens with Team Manitoba.

Anyone who would like to see Breanne Klassen and Team Manitoba in action in the Western Canadian championships at Maple Grove Rugby Park, Manitoba will be in action beginning Thursday as they take on Alberta #1 at 10:00 a.m. and then B.C. at 1:00 p.m.

Manitoba will again take to the field Saturday at 9:00 a.m. vs. Alberta #2 and then will close out their schedule with a game against Saskatchewan Sunday at 11:00 a.m.