West Chester’s women’s rugby team competed in the Sweet Sixteen Tournament this past weekend.West Chester was the No. 8 seed in the bracket, after their third place finish in the Mid Atlantic Rugby Union tournament last month. In the first round, the Golden Rams had to face No. 9 seeded Army. Army is actually the number one ranked team in the country, but seeding was based on the regions finish in the tournament last season.
West Chester fought hard against the country’s top team, giving them a run for their money, but ultimately fell to the competition 55-22.
“We played great, they just hit holes and took some long runs on us,” senior captain Erin Furlong said. This was her last trip to the National Tournament as a collegiate player.
West Chester was in the game for most of the first half. Army did score the first points of the game, but the Lady Rams fought back. Junior captain Sasha Stauffer scored WCU’s first try of the game in the thirtheenth minute. The try was converted to make the game an even 7-7.
Army was just too tough though, as they then went on a scoring spree, running up five trys in the first half and three more in the second to put the Golden Rams away.
The other two trys for West Chester came from freshmen Sarah Glick and Nicole Smith. It was Smith’s first career try.
Coach DeRemer was happy with the team’s performance on Saturday. He thinks a big player in the loss was poor defensive tackling, something they will try to counter on Sunday, when West Chester will face UCLA in the consolation match. Last season they lost their first game in the tournament to Brown University, but came back and crushed UCLA in the consolations to end the season on a high note.
Although the team had some rough luck in seeding for Nationals and didn’t go as far into it as they had hoped for, they still have nothing to hang their head over. After coming off of their third consecutive EPRU championship in the Fall season, the team has had one of their greatest runs ever.
West Chester started the spring season with James Madison University. They had beaten JMU the past two seasons to advance to the post season, and while there was nothing at stake this season, the Golden Rams still played their hearts out. They walked off of the field the victors, by a whopping score of 61-7.
Next up for the Rams were the Division I Delaware Blue Hens. For the first time in eight years, West Chester lost to UDEL, 20-13. The game was of no importance whatsoever as the big game was the next week against Virginia Tech.
Delaware was a game where West Chester had to work on all their flaws. Last season, the team lost a core group of seniors that had brought the team together over their four seasons here. This year’s team is much younger, and is still working on coming together and working everything out.
It seemed to work, because the next weekend, they made it look easy, shutting the Hokies out 42-0 and earning a spot in the MARFU tournament, but more importantly, a trip to Florida in April for the National Tournament, their fourth straight trip.
The Lady Rams next games were in Virginia, for the MARFU semi-finals. These games were solely for the purpose of seeding, but even so, West Chester came away from the season with new milestones reached.
In the first game, they took on nationally ranked No. 2 Navy, falling 62-5. Next up though was the University of Virginia. West Chester won this game 32-5. This was a milestone for the team, as it was the first time in history that they won a game in the MARFU semi-finals, and went into the National Tournament ranked higher then they have ever before.
Also in that game, Freshman Sarah Glick broke two records. She scored five of West Chester’s six trys in the game, which set a record for trys in one game at five, and the record for points in one game at 25.
The next few weeks were just regular season games, more like practice games for the Golden Rams, getting ready for the National Tournament. West Chester walked over LaSalle 46-5, and then Temple 31-12.
Sunday will be the last collegiate game for seniors Erin Furlong, Beverley Schmitz and Brittany Heckman. Next season will have a much larger upper class, with 12 seniors. Sasha Stauffer will most likely be looked to again for leadership of the team, after sharing this year’s captain role with Furlong.
Ryan Frisco is a second-year student majoring in Communication studies. He can be reached at RF648257@wcupa.edu.