Skip to navigation Skip to content Skip to footer

Steacy caps international career with bronze medal in France

June 25, 2017

Eoin Colquhoun, Pronghorns Athletics

LETHBRIDGE – Having announced her upcoming retirement from international rugby earlier this spring on home soil, former Pronghorn star Ashley Steacy (nee: Patzer) concluded her career with a bronze medal that Women's Sevens World Series final stop of 2017 in France.

Steacy and her Canadian teammates beat the host French side 36-7 in the bronze medal match. On Day one, Steacy and her Canadian teammates went undefeated and after a win over Ireland in the quarterfinals, they lost to Australia in the semi-finals.

With the loss to Australia, Canada had to settle for third place in the final Women's Sevens World Series standings for the second year in a row.

Steacy earned her first caps for both Canada's fifteens and sevens teams in 2007 and later went on to play in the 2010 fifteens Women's World Cup. In 2013 she won a silver medal playing in her second Women's Rugby World Cup Sevens.

As part of the original group of athletes that centralized with the sevens program in Langford, BC in 2011, she became a fixture on the Women's Sevens World Series and international sevens scene. Coming off shoulder surgery, Steacy was named to the 2014-2015 Women's Sevens World Series Dream team and Rugby Canada's Women's Sevens Player of the Year for 2014.

Her career was highlighted this past summer as a member of Canada's Olympic Bronze medal winning team in Rio and she was also a member of the gold medal winning Canadian team at the Pan Am Games in Toronto in 2015.

Steacy will go down as one of the most decorated Pronghorn Athletes, excelling throughout her university career. She burst onto the university scene in the fall of 2005, being named both the Canada West and CIS rookie of the year.

She went on to be named both the CIS and Canada West player of the year twice and led the Pronghorns to their first conference and national titles. She was part of four consecutive Canada West and three consecutive CIS titles from 2006 to 2009.