Ladies’s Rugby Workforce Advances to Nationwide and Ivy Championships
After dominating within the Upstate New York Sevens division one match, the ladies’s rugby crew will compete within the Nationwide Collegiate Rugby Championship match in Washington, D.C. on April 28 and 29.
Rugby is a full contact sport that originated in the UK and includes passing a ball both sideways or backwards between teammates. The crew that scores probably the most factors wins the match.
Factors could be scored in two methods — tries and conversions. Tries are the place the participant touches the ball within the “strive zone,” which is on the finish of the sector, and are price 5 factors. Conversions are when a participant kicks the ball by way of the goalpost and are price two factors.
On the qualifying match at St. Bonaventure College, Cornell performed in opposition to Kent College, Syracuse College, College of Pittsburgh and Colgate College. With every sport lasting solely 14 minutes, sevens rugby — the place there are seven gamers on the sector — is a dash.
“We needed to win all [of the games] to get to our final and ultimate sport which was in opposition to Colgate, which could be very thrilling as a result of we now have a long-standing pleasant rivalry,“ stated crew captain Tara McWilliams ’25. “To beat them in that ultimate sport was a pleasant strategy to go away that match and qualify for nationals as a result of we had been training for thus lengthy.”
In line with Aleks Marcinkowski ’25, this would be the girls’s rugby crew’s first time competing at nationals.
“We’ll be taking part in in opposition to Colgate and Pitt once more, which is thrilling [because] we all know our competitors going into that,” McWilliams stated. “For different colleges, similar to Wisconsin and Clemson that are additionally division one golf equipment, we now have to plan just a little bit extra and watch their sport movie to research their performs.”
The weekend earlier than nationals, the crew shall be competing on the Ivy Sevens Event at Dartmouth Faculty the place they’ll compete in opposition to the opposite Ivy League girls’s rugby groups.
“We’ve undoubtedly upped the depth throughout practices in these weeks main up,” Marcinkowski stated. “Each of these weekends [we will play a] very excessive depth and caliber of groups.”
Captain Zulaikha Jaffery ’26 expressed pleasure concerning the upcoming match.
“It’ll be my first time going to Ivies, which I feel shall be like a fantastic expertise for my private participant development, together with sending all of our seniors off and having one final time the place we are able to all play collectively,” Jaffery stated. “It’ll undoubtedly be price it. [I’m] very excited.”
Now that the crew has made nationals, McWilliams expressed a hope that the college will acknowledge them as a quasi-varsity crew, quite than a membership crew. This may assist the crew achieve entry to assets for journey, recruitment, area privileges and extra.
“We’ve been working in the direction of the next stage of play in our membership, ultimately to achieve some type of quasi-varsity standing. That has been our ever standing objective this complete whole tutorial yr.” McWilliams stated. “We simply wish to show ourselves and say that we’re a critical sport. We do qualify at greater ranges of play.”
McWilliams famous that rugby is the quickest rising sport in America and the crew is seeking to increase. They welcome members no matter previous rugby expertise.
“Our crew [is] such a superb neighborhood” Marcinkowski stated. “The game of rugby brings out such distinctive and fascinating folks.”
Elizabeth Gardner is a Solar Employees Author and could be reached at [email protected]
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