Your Scrumhalf Connection

from The Daily Sentinel:

Photo by William Woody— Mesa State’s Mackenzie Lewis, center, drives the ball through a line of Western State defenders on Saturday during the first half of the team’s 58-0 win against Western State at Canyon View Park.

The same sport for men is often played by a different set of rules for women.

Frankly, women are getting tired of it.

A rough-and-tumble group at Mesa State College is changing the notion that women can’t play as aggressively as men by starting a women’s rugby team.

“Even though they try to make it equal for men and women, they still make women’s sports wussier,” said freshman Bobby Bouchard. “Rugby is cool because they don’t do anything, we play the same amount of time as the guys, and the same rules as the guys.”

Bouchard and Mackenzie Lewis are ruggers who started the women’s rugby program after playing on the same select rugby team in Denver.

They didn’t plan to start a team in college. It just worked out that way.

Bouchard enrolled at Mesa to join her two sisters. Lewis wanted to play soccer.

“I was going to try out for the soccer team and things fell through with the coach, so I said, ‘I’ll play rugby,’ ” Lewis said. “I wasn’t quite ready to give it up.”

It didn’t take long for Lewis and Bouchard to figure out they still had more rugby to play. Once they decided to put a team together, a coach from their select team helped them get in contact with biology professor Kristy Duran.

“One of their coaches was a friend of mine that I played rugby with in Boulder,” Duran said. “She heard that (Lewis and Bouchard) were coming to Mesa and she gave them my name, and said ‘Get ahold of Kristy, she’d love to coach you.’ “

After the three met, Bouchard and Lewis vowed to get players together and start practicing. Bouchard and Lewis went dorm to dorm, room to room to recruit. They posted fliers all over campus.

to read the rest of the article, go here.

For the most up to date news about the women’s Collegiate game, hover over Competitions on the Navigation bar and then choose the division you would like news on. Or view the D1 and D2 Collegiate rankings themselves.

MIT Div 3 Champions

Nov. 22, 2009 – Cherry Hill, NJ

On a picture perfect Fall day, the National Small College Rugby Organization’s Divisions 3 and 4 Women’s Collegiate Championships were concluded with a dominating performance by the New England RFU Champion MIT over the East Penn RU Champion East Stroudsburg University by a score of 41 to 5 in the D3 final while Drexel University (East Penn RU Champion) held off Wentworth Institute of Technology (New England RFU Champion) 22 to 7 to capture the D4 title.

MIT and East Stroudsburg kicked off the D3 final in what was expected to be a close encounter. ESU started fast and put a lot of pressure on the MIT forwards. 10 minutes into the match, ESU’s Stephanie Carmella intercepted a pass from MIT flyhalf Liz Umhoefer and ran 35 meters to score the first try of the match and give ESU a 5-0 lead. ESU focused on ball retention with its forwards and keep the ball away from MIT speedster Ade Ogunniyi. MIT’s forwards stood their ground and began to exert their own pressure with controlled rucking. MIT’s center Rachel Forman finally

notched their first score to tie the match at 5-5 with 20 minutes left in the first half. About 4 minutes later, Umhoefer redeemed herself with a great run to set up Ogunniyi for an easy run in to give MIT the 12 to 5 lead. With less than 5 minutes to go in the half, MIT won an ESU put in at a 5 meter scrum and no. 8 Carly Narlesky scored. Then with seconds to go in the half, MIT won a ruck at half way and the ball was feed out to Ogunniyi and she out ran 2 defenders to give MIT a 24 to 5 half time lead. MIT’s pressure at an ESU scrum only 2 minutes into the second half caused a turnover and flanker Sam Cohen scored to run

the lead to 29 to 5. Just 5 minutes later MIT’s forwards won another ESU 5 meter scrum feed and Ogunniyi scored to up the lead to 36 to 5. While ESU fought valiantly and never let down they could not find a way to score. They did keep MIT from scoring again until just about the final whistle when who else but Ade Ogunniyi took off on a 25 meter run beating 4 defenders. Final score MIT 41, ESU 5.

On Saturday, MIT ran past Hofstra University (Met New York RFU Champion) 63 to 5 with wing Ade Ogunniyi scoring 8 trys and East Stroudsburg toppled University of Rochester (New York State RC Champion) 40 to 14 in the D3 semifinals.

MIT’s talent scrumhalf Alyssa Baccarella was named MVP, while ESU’s feist scrumhalf Michelle Yoo was named the “Heart and Soul” of her club and was awarded the game ball.

In a match from the school of hard knocks, Drexel and Wentworth fought both ‘tooth and nail’ in the Division 4 final. Both teams came into the match undefeated. Both teams meant business with hard hitting both in forward and back play. Drexel took an early 5-0 lead when Wentworth went on attack and center Cathy Ordile scored to give her club the 7-5 lead. Drexel’s speedy scrumhalf Hannah Bennett scampered in for a late 1st half try to give Drexel a 12 to 7 halftime lead. The 2nd half started taking its toll on Wentworth as a few of their key starters succumbed to injuries and needed to be replaced. Drexel forwards led by no. 8 Mia Escobar kept Wentworth under pressure. Drexel found the in goal twice more in the second half to defeat Wentworth 22 to 7.

Drexel’s Mia Escobar was named MVP, while Wentworth flyhalf Allie Brundgie was named the “Heart and Soul” of her club and was awarded the game ball.

A crowd of over 200 spectators, including friends and families of the players, enjoyed the action on the field and the crowning of 2 National Championships.

The NSCRO extends its appreciation to those who helped make this an excellent rugby event, including the host club, Philadelphia Women’s RFC (www.pwrfc.org), South Jersey RFC (www.southjerseyrugby.org) for use of their excellent field, the medical staff of Dr. Brian Sokalsky and ATC Kenny Rogers, and referees Terry Haas, Pete Hesler and Richard Cobb and the financial support of the East Penn RU, Met NY RFU, New York State Rugby Conference and the New England RFU.

For more information on the NSCRO, visit our website at www.nscro.org

Steve Cohen
President and Co-Founder

The National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO) will be holding its 2009 Women’s Collegiate Division 3 and 4 National Rugby Championships on Nov. 21 and 22 in Cherry Hill, NJ at the home field of the South Jersey Rugby Club (http://www.southjerseyrugby.org/).

NSCRO was founded and organized by Steve Cohen and Chip Auscavitch. For more information about NSCRO go to http://www.nscro.org .

The Championships comprise the champions on the only LAUs in USA Rugby that have women’s collegiate D3 and D4 leagues. The Division 3 competition began in September with 44 teams playing in four local rugby leagues in New England, New York State, Metropolitan New York and Eastern Pennsylvania. While Division 4 has 27 teams playing in two local leagues in New England and Eastern Pennsylvania.

Field Location - Home Field of the South Jersey RFC, Cherry Hill, NJ
The field is on Evesham Rd. diagonally across from Virtua Hospital (Voorhees).
Directions are at : http://www.epru.org/news/d.php?d=18
The field is close to the corner of Cropwell Road and E. Evesham Road, Cherry Hill, NJ. There is parking adjacent to the field.

About the NSCRO
The National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO, pronounced “N”-Scro) was co-founded by Steve Cohen and Chip Auscavitch in 2007 in order to establish an official organization to oversee the Division III and Division IV college rugby National Championships. These championships are a vital part of developing rugby in the U.S. as over 200 men’s and women’s teams are classified in this category (more than 1/4 of all college rugby teams).

Prior to 2007 these championships were still held, but managed independent from any union or organization. They were referred to as “East Coast Championships”. As additional teams and unions began to participate, and the NSCRO was created, the names were changed to “NSCRO National Championships”.

At http://www.nscro.org you will find lots of helpful information, including important administrative contacts, schedules, scores, standings, policies & procedures, etc. Please feel free to explore the site and definitely check out the “Documents” link on the left hand side.