RUGBY SEASON HAS STARTED! We had our first practice Thursday and I am MAD EXCITED to have my favorite thing back in my life. It's kind of interesting to be a rookie on a team where, between AU alums and Stinger 7s, I already know and have played with 90% of my 'new' teammates. Lacking in the excitement of meeting tons of new people, but of course a little less stressful.
At the first practice, there was also a legit rookie rookie, who's never played rugby before ever, but I think she's going to be a great player - she'd done soccer and football before, but she also got lifting in the lineout done perfectly by her second lift. Yay!
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Rugerrama 7s
This turned out to be the last week of sevens for the Stingers - indeed, a truly sad state of affairs - but Ruggerama was definitely a good ending note.
The tournament is hosted by the NoVa women at Rosecroft Raceway right outside DC, and it's the only all-women's tournament we've been to this summer. After seeing most of the same teams every weekend for the past month or so, playing a tournament that was both local and single-sex felt kind of cozy. There were only two pitches to play on, 11 teams in 2 divisions, and lots of camaraderie.
The Stingers entered in the social division, and in the morning we played the Furies' second side and Georgetown for two wins before losing to the Maryland Exiles' second side. After a short break (during which I was convinced to buy one of the awesome tournament T-shirts - I am so broke, but it was so cute - green with a pink fish!), everyone was seeded for the finals.
We were seeded third (I believe) to play the Exiles 2 again. We lost (again), and ended up playing Furies 2 (again) and won (again). It was overall a great day of sevens rugby - I felt like I was finally getting the hang of how to play this bastard step-child version of the fifteens game I know and love... just in time for the end of sevens season. Oh, well!
NoVa 4 ended up winning our division, and then everyone was treated to a U15 exhibition sevens game. I hadn't even realized that there were U15 girls' teams in the area, but apparently there are two! Both were from Virginia, and we were all pretty impressed with the girls' skills. They had a lot of smart runs and good tackles, and all the spectators were cheering hard for both sides. I hope most of those players stick it out through college and club-side teams - I'm sure ten years from now, some of them will be playing for the national Eagles team and representing the US at the world cup!
The day finished up with a game slightly closer to Eagle-level as NoVa 1 played the Furies to win their tournament (again). Everyone then gathered for a raffle and presentation of our winnings - pitchers for the teams that placed, and bottles of champagne for everyone who participated!
And thus ended my first sevens season. I have to say, I really enjoyed this new kind of rugby. It's much faster and more dynamic than fifteens, and the game gives me an opportunity to do the things I don't get to do as much when I play in the scrum, like passing the ball and making long runs. I think I definitely improved my ball-handling and sprinting skills, and I might be starting to figure out my footwork as well. I also ended up playing scrumhalf, which was a new position for me (though very different from a 15s scrumhalf) and quite fun. I do wish that our season could have run longer (or that fewer of the Stingers took the summer off!), but I'm already looking forward to next summer.
The tournament is hosted by the NoVa women at Rosecroft Raceway right outside DC, and it's the only all-women's tournament we've been to this summer. After seeing most of the same teams every weekend for the past month or so, playing a tournament that was both local and single-sex felt kind of cozy. There were only two pitches to play on, 11 teams in 2 divisions, and lots of camaraderie.
The Stingers entered in the social division, and in the morning we played the Furies' second side and Georgetown for two wins before losing to the Maryland Exiles' second side. After a short break (during which I was convinced to buy one of the awesome tournament T-shirts - I am so broke, but it was so cute - green with a pink fish!), everyone was seeded for the finals.
We were seeded third (I believe) to play the Exiles 2 again. We lost (again), and ended up playing Furies 2 (again) and won (again). It was overall a great day of sevens rugby - I felt like I was finally getting the hang of how to play this bastard step-child version of the fifteens game I know and love... just in time for the end of sevens season. Oh, well!
NoVa 4 ended up winning our division, and then everyone was treated to a U15 exhibition sevens game. I hadn't even realized that there were U15 girls' teams in the area, but apparently there are two! Both were from Virginia, and we were all pretty impressed with the girls' skills. They had a lot of smart runs and good tackles, and all the spectators were cheering hard for both sides. I hope most of those players stick it out through college and club-side teams - I'm sure ten years from now, some of them will be playing for the national Eagles team and representing the US at the world cup!
The day finished up with a game slightly closer to Eagle-level as NoVa 1 played the Furies to win their tournament (again). Everyone then gathered for a raffle and presentation of our winnings - pitchers for the teams that placed, and bottles of champagne for everyone who participated!
And thus ended my first sevens season. I have to say, I really enjoyed this new kind of rugby. It's much faster and more dynamic than fifteens, and the game gives me an opportunity to do the things I don't get to do as much when I play in the scrum, like passing the ball and making long runs. I think I definitely improved my ball-handling and sprinting skills, and I might be starting to figure out my footwork as well. I also ended up playing scrumhalf, which was a new position for me (though very different from a 15s scrumhalf) and quite fun. I do wish that our season could have run longer (or that fewer of the Stingers took the summer off!), but I'm already looking forward to next summer.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Cape Fear
Rugby, the beach, fireworks, hot athletic women, meeting new people in hilarious and alcohol-tinged escapades... if Julie Andrews and I were hanging around in lacy nightgowns talking about my favorite things, the list might go a little something like this.
But as much as I love Julie Andrews, that's not what I'm thinking about to distract me from a big scary thunderstorm. That list's more like my schedule of events from this past July 4th weekend.
A seven-hour drive, thirteen ruggers in a six-person hotel room three blocks from a beach in North Carolina, the "oldest and largest sevens rugby tournament in the United States," and a stream of alcoholic beverages as steady as the crashing of the waves on the sand. That, in a nutshell, is Cape Fear Sevens.
The weekend started off at the ungodly hour of 5am on July 4th. But though I might have been reluctant to leave my warm, cozy (and, might I add, double-occupancy) bed at an hour when even the birds were barely beginning to consider that perhaps it might begin to be morning soon, I had to admit that the timing was right when we arrived at Wrightsville Beach by noon with plenty of time to pull on bikinis, slather on some sunscreen, grab a cooler full of beer and enjoy the sand and the sun like the proper American citizens we are.
I must take a second here to mention how much I love the beach. It's not often I get an opportunity to visit one, but when I do I can't help but gush over the beauty of a carpet of shells ground to a fine powder by the hypnotically mesmerizing repetition of beating buckets of salt water. And you'd better believe that we hit that beach every single day that we were down there, and that every time we were there I made it out into the ocean to play chicken with the cresting waves.
But one cannot live on beach alone (much as I'd like to try!), and after all, it was July the Fourth, the Day of Our Nation's Independence Celebration - and being as I haven't been in the country for the holiday for the past two summers, I couldn't wait for that seminal expression of what countless generations of patriotic American citizens have fought, bled, and died for: the freedom to ignite large, loud, colorful explosives in front of crowds of hot, sweaty people.
And oh, but friends, those fireworks were worth the wait. Though only Nuge and I were interested enough in our country's freedom to fight through the crowds to find a small square of sidewalk from which we could watch the show, instead of staying home and drinking by the hotel pool, we definitely felt that it was everyone else missing out on all the fun. It's been so long since I've gone to see a firework show, I forgot how fantastic they were - the explosions! the colors! the rockets that screech on the way up and the ones that sizzle on the way down! rainbow fireworks, red-white-and-blue fireworks, silver and gold and purple and green fireworks!
You can, I hope, forgive my mature, adult, twenty-two-year-old self for literally jumping up and down and clapping and laughing with glee.
The long traffic-jam home, followed by a joyful reunion of friends, beer, and splashy fun in the hotel pool rounded out my happy celebration of our Independence Day.
***
Saturday dawned on phone alarms and joking and the organizational acrobatics of thirteen girls with one bathroom. Eventually, however, everyone had successfully collected themselves and their kits and we headed off to the Cape Fear pitch, where the tournament coordinator (happily lurching about under a fisherman's hat and a boozey aura) directed us towards our first match. We kitted up, donned our warm-ups, and headed over.
Now, a quick word about our team uniforms: our usual jerseys are heavy, tough affairs, several sizes too large for just about anybody and as breathable as your average raincoat. Not ideal for a game which is essentially two seven-minute halves of sprinting in the Carolina heat. So on the way to the beach, a car full of teammates was dispatched to Target to pick up some nice, light, sleeveless tops - which they did, choosing a not-quite-eye-scarring shade of greenish-turquoise.
On the way to the register, however, they chanced to pass by the sale rack in the Outrageous department, and impulsively decided that we required warm-up jackets as well.
Short-sleeved, midriff-baring, zebra-lined, gold-accented, big-hooded warm-up jackets.
Which we all wore with the necessary accessories of sunglasses and acapella renditions of J Lo.
Representing the "Stingers From the Block" in the Women's Social division, we played "Whores R Us" (Savannah/Charleston) and won, then lost to the Raleigh Venom and the Hustlers. The team took a bit to gel - a lot of players who don't normally do sevens show up just for this tournament, so we hadn't exactly played together before - but we had some pretty nice plays, including a try by yours truly who managed to get the ball down in the try zone despite a rather speedy Hustler having caught up enough to get one hand in my waistband and the other on my collar.
Between our games, we guzzled water and Gatorade and wandered over to watch some of the excellent matches in the Women's Premier division. DC area represented with NOVA and the Furies, who were in turn matched against the Northeast territorial team, two USA developmental sides, and the Atlanta women. It is always a treat to be able to observe a field full of fit, talented, experienced athletes match their skills and speed against each other, and the games this weekend were no exception.
But let's be honest - Cape Fear is only somewhat about the rugby. The rest is about the socializing and the drinking. So we prepared for an evening of just that, lazing about on the beach, taking naps and showers and generally refueling. Our relaxed evening was only breifly interrupted by two of our teammates getting caught in the elevator and having to call 911 for a firetruck to come get them out.
It's perhaps one of my favorite scenes from the weekend: two of us hidden in the elevator, one (soberly and anxiously) standing on the street corner watching for the fire truck, the rest of us standing on the balcony, beers in hand, excitedly pointing out the flashing lights we'd just sighted a few blocks away.
After that, it was a typical long night of story-telling and making new friends to the tune of $2 beers, and the clock was reading well past midnight by the time we made it back to the room to crash three-to-a-bed to sleep. But come morning, we were up and at 'em again - after all, there were bagels to eat, teammates who came home at 7:30 am to tease, and most of all, rugby to be played.
Not that we seemed prepared for an intense day of athletic endeavor. The sunglasses were on, the zebra-striped hoods were up, and to call our warm-up half-hearted would be generous. By some coincidence of bracketing, we were playing Whores R Us for the second time, and they seemed determined to make up their loss of the day before: while we stood in a circle and lazily tossed around a ball, they ran opposed plays off of scrums and lineouts.
I've got to admit that in the first moments before stepping onto the pitch, I did not feel optimistic about our chances. But when the whistle blew, it was like a switch had been flipped, and we abruptly forgot that we were supposed to be tired and hungover and started doing what we do best: playing rugby. All our playing time together the day before finally paid off, and we started playing together like a team instead of seven individuals. We not only beat the Whores for a second time, but also kept them from scoring a single try of their own.
Walking back to our tent, warm-ups on and a teammate holding up speakers blaring "Move, Bitch, Get Out the Way," I did feel like a giant asshole, yes; but a try-scorin', ass-kickin', rugby playin' asshole.
Our momentum held up for the first half of our second game against Raleigh (which I did not play, since I was also feeling like a slightly concussed asshole who forgets that she ought not pull people down on top of her head in the tackle and whose vision has gone all spackled on one side), but by the second half it became obvious which was the better team. Raleigh's speedy wingers took advantage of our untidy, bunchy defensive line to run around the outside and score a bunch of tries.
After their win, Raleigh ended up in the final against the Hustlers (I swear there were six teams in our division, but we didn't ever see the other two). It was an exciting, close-fought match that displayed the skills of both teams, but the Hustlers clearly had a tighter, faster game, and swept in an excellent win before a crowd of cheering spectators.
Having finished with the rugby portion of our weekend, we said goodbye to those of us who had not been fortunate enough to get off work on Monday, tracked down some food and then went off to the beach again before we headed out to the NOVA house for more genial socializing.
The NOVA women, it turns out, had not been lazing about. They had gotten right into the business of partying, partially in celebration of someone's birthday but mostly just because that's what you do when you have a rugby house on the beach. We had dance parties and sing-a-longs and (as per the birthday girl's request) a drinking game to the Beep "http://coachingrugby.blogspot.com/2007/02/you-love-to-hate-it-beep-test.html">Test, which was simultaneously the most terrifying and most fantastic method of imbibing alochol that I have ever been fortunate enough to participate in.
Then, of course, it was out to the bar again. It's hard to pin down the best story of the evening - was it the over-enthusiastic 'cheers' that ended up with a smashed Corona bottle? The two girls who had hooked up the night before and studiously avoided each other all day collapsing on each other and then disappearing into the night for two hours? Our declaration that we would find a man for our single straight teammate, followed by her taking out a cute man with a British accent to the beach until 4 am? Or perhaps the local lesbian who showed up and practically went into shock to see the numbers of hot lesbians who had inexplicably shown up at her favorite beach bar, who of course twenty minutes later was my best friend? Or how she became the second hot girl of the evening to show up with (and make out with) someone else, but spend a good chunk of time flirting with me before insisting that we exchange phone numbers so we could maybe hang out again later?
And those are only the best stories.
Eventually, though, all good times must come to an end. Last call inevitably comes, beers must be finished, tabs closed, and beds (eventually) returned to.
Morning on Monday was a sluggish affair, as you may well imagine. But we managed to roll out of bed, rescue any remaining food in the room (all the alcohol was unsurprisingly already gone), and checkout of the hotel in time for a last few hours at the beach.
And then it was home again - home by way of Wawa and outlet shops, home slowly but surely. And by ten at night, I had returned, exhausted and salty with sand in places that sand really shouldn't be, but infinitely content.
But as much as I love Julie Andrews, that's not what I'm thinking about to distract me from a big scary thunderstorm. That list's more like my schedule of events from this past July 4th weekend.
A seven-hour drive, thirteen ruggers in a six-person hotel room three blocks from a beach in North Carolina, the "oldest and largest sevens rugby tournament in the United States," and a stream of alcoholic beverages as steady as the crashing of the waves on the sand. That, in a nutshell, is Cape Fear Sevens.
The weekend started off at the ungodly hour of 5am on July 4th. But though I might have been reluctant to leave my warm, cozy (and, might I add, double-occupancy) bed at an hour when even the birds were barely beginning to consider that perhaps it might begin to be morning soon, I had to admit that the timing was right when we arrived at Wrightsville Beach by noon with plenty of time to pull on bikinis, slather on some sunscreen, grab a cooler full of beer and enjoy the sand and the sun like the proper American citizens we are.
I must take a second here to mention how much I love the beach. It's not often I get an opportunity to visit one, but when I do I can't help but gush over the beauty of a carpet of shells ground to a fine powder by the hypnotically mesmerizing repetition of beating buckets of salt water. And you'd better believe that we hit that beach every single day that we were down there, and that every time we were there I made it out into the ocean to play chicken with the cresting waves.
But one cannot live on beach alone (much as I'd like to try!), and after all, it was July the Fourth, the Day of Our Nation's Independence Celebration - and being as I haven't been in the country for the holiday for the past two summers, I couldn't wait for that seminal expression of what countless generations of patriotic American citizens have fought, bled, and died for: the freedom to ignite large, loud, colorful explosives in front of crowds of hot, sweaty people.
And oh, but friends, those fireworks were worth the wait. Though only Nuge and I were interested enough in our country's freedom to fight through the crowds to find a small square of sidewalk from which we could watch the show, instead of staying home and drinking by the hotel pool, we definitely felt that it was everyone else missing out on all the fun. It's been so long since I've gone to see a firework show, I forgot how fantastic they were - the explosions! the colors! the rockets that screech on the way up and the ones that sizzle on the way down! rainbow fireworks, red-white-and-blue fireworks, silver and gold and purple and green fireworks!
You can, I hope, forgive my mature, adult, twenty-two-year-old self for literally jumping up and down and clapping and laughing with glee.
The long traffic-jam home, followed by a joyful reunion of friends, beer, and splashy fun in the hotel pool rounded out my happy celebration of our Independence Day.
***
Saturday dawned on phone alarms and joking and the organizational acrobatics of thirteen girls with one bathroom. Eventually, however, everyone had successfully collected themselves and their kits and we headed off to the Cape Fear pitch, where the tournament coordinator (happily lurching about under a fisherman's hat and a boozey aura) directed us towards our first match. We kitted up, donned our warm-ups, and headed over.
Now, a quick word about our team uniforms: our usual jerseys are heavy, tough affairs, several sizes too large for just about anybody and as breathable as your average raincoat. Not ideal for a game which is essentially two seven-minute halves of sprinting in the Carolina heat. So on the way to the beach, a car full of teammates was dispatched to Target to pick up some nice, light, sleeveless tops - which they did, choosing a not-quite-eye-scarring shade of greenish-turquoise.
On the way to the register, however, they chanced to pass by the sale rack in the Outrageous department, and impulsively decided that we required warm-up jackets as well.
Short-sleeved, midriff-baring, zebra-lined, gold-accented, big-hooded warm-up jackets.
Which we all wore with the necessary accessories of sunglasses and acapella renditions of J Lo.
Representing the "Stingers From the Block" in the Women's Social division, we played "Whores R Us" (Savannah/Charleston) and won, then lost to the Raleigh Venom and the Hustlers. The team took a bit to gel - a lot of players who don't normally do sevens show up just for this tournament, so we hadn't exactly played together before - but we had some pretty nice plays, including a try by yours truly who managed to get the ball down in the try zone despite a rather speedy Hustler having caught up enough to get one hand in my waistband and the other on my collar.
Between our games, we guzzled water and Gatorade and wandered over to watch some of the excellent matches in the Women's Premier division. DC area represented with NOVA and the Furies, who were in turn matched against the Northeast territorial team, two USA developmental sides, and the Atlanta women. It is always a treat to be able to observe a field full of fit, talented, experienced athletes match their skills and speed against each other, and the games this weekend were no exception.
But let's be honest - Cape Fear is only somewhat about the rugby. The rest is about the socializing and the drinking. So we prepared for an evening of just that, lazing about on the beach, taking naps and showers and generally refueling. Our relaxed evening was only breifly interrupted by two of our teammates getting caught in the elevator and having to call 911 for a firetruck to come get them out.
It's perhaps one of my favorite scenes from the weekend: two of us hidden in the elevator, one (soberly and anxiously) standing on the street corner watching for the fire truck, the rest of us standing on the balcony, beers in hand, excitedly pointing out the flashing lights we'd just sighted a few blocks away.
After that, it was a typical long night of story-telling and making new friends to the tune of $2 beers, and the clock was reading well past midnight by the time we made it back to the room to crash three-to-a-bed to sleep. But come morning, we were up and at 'em again - after all, there were bagels to eat, teammates who came home at 7:30 am to tease, and most of all, rugby to be played.
Not that we seemed prepared for an intense day of athletic endeavor. The sunglasses were on, the zebra-striped hoods were up, and to call our warm-up half-hearted would be generous. By some coincidence of bracketing, we were playing Whores R Us for the second time, and they seemed determined to make up their loss of the day before: while we stood in a circle and lazily tossed around a ball, they ran opposed plays off of scrums and lineouts.
I've got to admit that in the first moments before stepping onto the pitch, I did not feel optimistic about our chances. But when the whistle blew, it was like a switch had been flipped, and we abruptly forgot that we were supposed to be tired and hungover and started doing what we do best: playing rugby. All our playing time together the day before finally paid off, and we started playing together like a team instead of seven individuals. We not only beat the Whores for a second time, but also kept them from scoring a single try of their own.
Walking back to our tent, warm-ups on and a teammate holding up speakers blaring "Move, Bitch, Get Out the Way," I did feel like a giant asshole, yes; but a try-scorin', ass-kickin', rugby playin' asshole.
Our momentum held up for the first half of our second game against Raleigh (which I did not play, since I was also feeling like a slightly concussed asshole who forgets that she ought not pull people down on top of her head in the tackle and whose vision has gone all spackled on one side), but by the second half it became obvious which was the better team. Raleigh's speedy wingers took advantage of our untidy, bunchy defensive line to run around the outside and score a bunch of tries.
After their win, Raleigh ended up in the final against the Hustlers (I swear there were six teams in our division, but we didn't ever see the other two). It was an exciting, close-fought match that displayed the skills of both teams, but the Hustlers clearly had a tighter, faster game, and swept in an excellent win before a crowd of cheering spectators.
Having finished with the rugby portion of our weekend, we said goodbye to those of us who had not been fortunate enough to get off work on Monday, tracked down some food and then went off to the beach again before we headed out to the NOVA house for more genial socializing.
The NOVA women, it turns out, had not been lazing about. They had gotten right into the business of partying, partially in celebration of someone's birthday but mostly just because that's what you do when you have a rugby house on the beach. We had dance parties and sing-a-longs and (as per the birthday girl's request) a drinking game to the Beep "http://coachingrugby.blogspot.com/2007/02/you-love-to-hate-it-beep-test.html">Test, which was simultaneously the most terrifying and most fantastic method of imbibing alochol that I have ever been fortunate enough to participate in.
Then, of course, it was out to the bar again. It's hard to pin down the best story of the evening - was it the over-enthusiastic 'cheers' that ended up with a smashed Corona bottle? The two girls who had hooked up the night before and studiously avoided each other all day collapsing on each other and then disappearing into the night for two hours? Our declaration that we would find a man for our single straight teammate, followed by her taking out a cute man with a British accent to the beach until 4 am? Or perhaps the local lesbian who showed up and practically went into shock to see the numbers of hot lesbians who had inexplicably shown up at her favorite beach bar, who of course twenty minutes later was my best friend? Or how she became the second hot girl of the evening to show up with (and make out with) someone else, but spend a good chunk of time flirting with me before insisting that we exchange phone numbers so we could maybe hang out again later?
And those are only the best stories.
Eventually, though, all good times must come to an end. Last call inevitably comes, beers must be finished, tabs closed, and beds (eventually) returned to.
Morning on Monday was a sluggish affair, as you may well imagine. But we managed to roll out of bed, rescue any remaining food in the room (all the alcohol was unsurprisingly already gone), and checkout of the hotel in time for a last few hours at the beach.
And then it was home again - home by way of Wawa and outlet shops, home slowly but surely. And by ten at night, I had returned, exhausted and salty with sand in places that sand really shouldn't be, but infinitely content.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Fort Reno Park Closed Immediately and Indefinitely
Fort Reno Park... is closed immediately and indefinitely after United States Geological Survey satellite imaging reports found high levels of arsenic in the soil.
This is the park that we use for rugby practice. We are supposed to be reassured by the fact that you can only get arsenic in your system through ingestion... but this is not particularly reassuring when you play rugby, a sport in which you use a mouthguard (that you'd better believe is frequently dropped in the mud) and spend a lot of time on the ground literally "eating dirt."
I guess this is what happens when you attend a university that was a WWI military base/weapons development center...
Fort Reno Park... is closed immediately and indefinitely after United States Geological Survey satellite imaging reports found high levels of arsenic in the soil.
This is the park that we use for rugby practice. We are supposed to be reassured by the fact that you can only get arsenic in your system through ingestion... but this is not particularly reassuring when you play rugby, a sport in which you use a mouthguard (that you'd better believe is frequently dropped in the mud) and spend a lot of time on the ground literally "eating dirt."
I guess this is what happens when you attend a university that was a WWI military base/weapons development center...
Friday, May 2, 2008
Live! Rugby! Online!
I am a happy, happy Pink: USA Rugby is broadcasting the collegiate women's D1 championships LIVE online!!
At first the page just flat-out wouldn't load. I was stuck g-chatting with everyone else who was (unsuccessfully) trying to get it to work, and I ended up just refreshing the USA Rugby homepage to get the scores of the Brown/Penn State game.
But then, about twenty minutes from the end, it started working! And oh man, but I just about had a complete scrumgasm. This is my division of rugby (even if these teams do honestly play on a different level than AU does). And it was pretty exciting to watch PSU beat the pants off of someone that wasn't us.
Right now it's half-time in the Stanford/Navy game. I was rooting for a Navy/PSU final (wouldn't it be cool if PRU D1 was AU, UMD, and the two best teams in the nation?) and for awhile, it looked possible - Navy spent a considerable portion of the first 30 minutes in Stanford's 22, but Stanford's defense was pretty impenetrable, and Navy finally took a 3 point kick off of a penalty.
However, in the end of the half Stanford scored not one, but two tries... here's hoping the next 40 minutes will go Navy's way!
At first the page just flat-out wouldn't load. I was stuck g-chatting with everyone else who was (unsuccessfully) trying to get it to work, and I ended up just refreshing the USA Rugby homepage to get the scores of the Brown/Penn State game.
But then, about twenty minutes from the end, it started working! And oh man, but I just about had a complete scrumgasm. This is my division of rugby (even if these teams do honestly play on a different level than AU does). And it was pretty exciting to watch PSU beat the pants off of someone that wasn't us.
Right now it's half-time in the Stanford/Navy game. I was rooting for a Navy/PSU final (wouldn't it be cool if PRU D1 was AU, UMD, and the two best teams in the nation?) and for awhile, it looked possible - Navy spent a considerable portion of the first 30 minutes in Stanford's 22, but Stanford's defense was pretty impenetrable, and Navy finally took a 3 point kick off of a penalty.
However, in the end of the half Stanford scored not one, but two tries... here's hoping the next 40 minutes will go Navy's way!
Monday, April 7, 2008
AUWRFC and Pink: together for the last time
This weekend I played for AUWRFC for the last time. We entered into Ruggerfest, an all-female tournament hosted by the DC Furies.
Saturday, we played and beat Towson, then played (well) and lost to Nova's C side. The combination of the win/loss record and our point differential put us in a semifinal game vs. Lancaster. We lost, but it didn't feel like it - we played hard and well and scored two tries.
Now, one of those was a very special try - I scored it!!!! My third and final try for AU, in my last game playing for them.... and it was caught on video!!!!!!
What a way to end my AUWRFC career. Man.
However... the day wasn't over yet. Lancaster ended up needing subs for the final match, and I and one of my teammates volunteered. (My logic was that we'd played so well in the semifinal, AU deserved representation in the final!).
The ref we had was... abominable. Now, there are some pretty horrible refs out there... but this guy was the WORST I've ever had.
I bring this up to justify how I actually ended my season... not with an awesome game with AU in which I scored a fantastic try.
Nope.
Ended it with a sin bin. A yellow card. Kicked out of the game to spend ten minutes in the try zone while my team played one down.
In my defense, both Lancaster AND Nova (the other team) thought it was a BS call (which was also what we thought about... well, all of the ref's calls). My coach (now ex-coach, I guess?) also thought it was the most hilarious thing she'd heard all day and got really excited to tease me about it (she proposed that they change my nickname to "Sin Bin").
So that was it - a try, a yellow card, tons of bruising (including a few on my neck that look like hickies), a golfball sized lump on my shin, and lots and lots of mud.
And thus ends my AUWRFC career...
Saturday, we played and beat Towson, then played (well) and lost to Nova's C side. The combination of the win/loss record and our point differential put us in a semifinal game vs. Lancaster. We lost, but it didn't feel like it - we played hard and well and scored two tries.
Now, one of those was a very special try - I scored it!!!! My third and final try for AU, in my last game playing for them.... and it was caught on video!!!!!!
What a way to end my AUWRFC career. Man.
However... the day wasn't over yet. Lancaster ended up needing subs for the final match, and I and one of my teammates volunteered. (My logic was that we'd played so well in the semifinal, AU deserved representation in the final!).
The ref we had was... abominable. Now, there are some pretty horrible refs out there... but this guy was the WORST I've ever had.
I bring this up to justify how I actually ended my season... not with an awesome game with AU in which I scored a fantastic try.
Nope.
Ended it with a sin bin. A yellow card. Kicked out of the game to spend ten minutes in the try zone while my team played one down.
In my defense, both Lancaster AND Nova (the other team) thought it was a BS call (which was also what we thought about... well, all of the ref's calls). My coach (now ex-coach, I guess?) also thought it was the most hilarious thing she'd heard all day and got really excited to tease me about it (she proposed that they change my nickname to "Sin Bin").
So that was it - a try, a yellow card, tons of bruising (including a few on my neck that look like hickies), a golfball sized lump on my shin, and lots and lots of mud.
And thus ends my AUWRFC career...
Cherry Blossom Tournament 2008
For some odd reason, I'm feeling pretty good about life. That's odd because nothing has been particularly good in the past week or two, but I've just been generally more cheerful.
Maybe it's the spring - things blooming, getting warmer? Maybe it's the planets aligning? Who knows.
One of the effects of this renewed happiness has been me falling back in love with rugby. Now, don't get me wrong, I never really fell out of love... but sometimes, when I'm busy and tired and it's cold/rainy, I get a little cranky that I still need to go to rugby where I will inevitably get hit and be sore and be even MORE tired and I need that time to do work! Not to mention all the business I have to take care of as treasurer.
But over the past week or so, I remembered how much I care. Not for any particular reason, but instead of "oh MAN, something else to do!" I've been working hard in the gym and trying to find time to watch the World Cup games I still have on my DVR and generally having "rugby player" moved up on my list of priorities.
This weekend we went to the Cherry Blossom Tournament, a big annual tournament that used to be on the mall (under the cherry blossoms), but isn't anymore because... well, spring = rain + ruggers = really messy ground = not nice for tourists. So now it's held at a racetrack.
Saturday was supposed to be awful weather, but ended up beautiful - mid-fifties, cloudy but with patches of sun. We started off the day playing West Virginia on a muddy pitch with quite a few lakes and patches of ankle-deep mud. I was flanking strong-side (MY FAVORITE, especially when the opposition's flyhalf is a cute as the WV's was - I do enjoy tackling an attractive rugger girl!). AU played really, really well - especially considering the ref was about as bad as you can get: we scored a try that he wouldn't call because "he couldn't see it".
However, we just went back and scored another try about 30 seconds later. So that worked out okay. I was very proud of us, because usually we get really upset at bad refs (or other teams playing dirty, i.e. the UMD game in the fall) and we get caught up in our heads and don't play as a team, but Saturday we realized that "you can't do anything about the ref" and kicked ass despite having an AWFUL ref. Final score: 12-7, AUWRFC.
In the afternoon, we played Xavier University, which is apparently located in Cincinnati? By then the sun was out and the ground was much dryer (we were on a different pitch, too, which had fewer puddles to start with). This game I locked, and oh man... I have NEVER wanted to be flanking instead so badly! AU had a little more trouble with this game, even though when we'd watched Xavier play WV earlier we'd thought they'd be easy (big girls, but slow, didn't run low, and didn't come up hard). AU was not nearly as aggressive as we needed to be (thus me DYING to be flanking), but we did well enough to keep them back and score one try of our own. FInal score: 5-0, AUWRFC.
This put us in the top bracket for Sunday - which dawned as cold and miserable as Saturday had been supposed to be. We played Army at 9:30 am on a pitch that was part mud, part lake.
It's been a long time since I played a game that messy, but AU played REALLY well. Despite the mess and the cold and the wet and the mud (I probably weighed about ten pounds extra, between the mud and the water soaking me all the way to my underwear), we never stopped and never slowed down and kept coming up hard and aggressive. I was strong-side flanking again, though I ended up eighting for a bit at the end. We lost, not too surprisingly, but we definitely kept them from scoring as much as they could've AND scored a try against them! Final score: something - 5, Army.
I haven't done a lot of game writeups this season, but generally I'm beginning to feel really good about my playing. Between being sick and busy, I'm still not as strong or fast as I'd like to be, but technically I think I've really improved. I've started making different decisions in rucks (like long-body rucking or sealing over my teammates) and reacting to how both AU and the other team are arranged across the field. I've also gotten a lot better at scrumming - I've figured out flanking much better, and over just the past week or so I've really figured out a good locking body position.
I do still need to work on my form in tackles (I am aggressive and effective, but with better form I'd use less energy and hurt myself less), and I'd like to be a bit better at lineouts. Flanking, I'm not always off the scrum fast enough, and overall I do still have some work to do on field awareness and strategy - for example when to use a short vs. long lineouts, etc.
But there will always be room for improvement. Overall, I'm definitely feeling good!
More or less related: on Saturday, I experimented with wearing my new molded cleats (the ones with spike cleats) instead of metal. And, oh man, RIGHT CHOICE. Maybe not if I'd been locking, but my feet felt SO much lighter without those nasty heavy metal spikes weighing me down. If I ever feel the need to get metal again, I've gotta look smaller and lighter, but I think I'm sticking to molded for now.
Maybe it's the spring - things blooming, getting warmer? Maybe it's the planets aligning? Who knows.
One of the effects of this renewed happiness has been me falling back in love with rugby. Now, don't get me wrong, I never really fell out of love... but sometimes, when I'm busy and tired and it's cold/rainy, I get a little cranky that I still need to go to rugby where I will inevitably get hit and be sore and be even MORE tired and I need that time to do work! Not to mention all the business I have to take care of as treasurer.
But over the past week or so, I remembered how much I care. Not for any particular reason, but instead of "oh MAN, something else to do!" I've been working hard in the gym and trying to find time to watch the World Cup games I still have on my DVR and generally having "rugby player" moved up on my list of priorities.
This weekend we went to the Cherry Blossom Tournament, a big annual tournament that used to be on the mall (under the cherry blossoms), but isn't anymore because... well, spring = rain + ruggers = really messy ground = not nice for tourists. So now it's held at a racetrack.
Saturday was supposed to be awful weather, but ended up beautiful - mid-fifties, cloudy but with patches of sun. We started off the day playing West Virginia on a muddy pitch with quite a few lakes and patches of ankle-deep mud. I was flanking strong-side (MY FAVORITE, especially when the opposition's flyhalf is a cute as the WV's was - I do enjoy tackling an attractive rugger girl!). AU played really, really well - especially considering the ref was about as bad as you can get: we scored a try that he wouldn't call because "he couldn't see it".
However, we just went back and scored another try about 30 seconds later. So that worked out okay. I was very proud of us, because usually we get really upset at bad refs (or other teams playing dirty, i.e. the UMD game in the fall) and we get caught up in our heads and don't play as a team, but Saturday we realized that "you can't do anything about the ref" and kicked ass despite having an AWFUL ref. Final score: 12-7, AUWRFC.
In the afternoon, we played Xavier University, which is apparently located in Cincinnati? By then the sun was out and the ground was much dryer (we were on a different pitch, too, which had fewer puddles to start with). This game I locked, and oh man... I have NEVER wanted to be flanking instead so badly! AU had a little more trouble with this game, even though when we'd watched Xavier play WV earlier we'd thought they'd be easy (big girls, but slow, didn't run low, and didn't come up hard). AU was not nearly as aggressive as we needed to be (thus me DYING to be flanking), but we did well enough to keep them back and score one try of our own. FInal score: 5-0, AUWRFC.
This put us in the top bracket for Sunday - which dawned as cold and miserable as Saturday had been supposed to be. We played Army at 9:30 am on a pitch that was part mud, part lake.
It's been a long time since I played a game that messy, but AU played REALLY well. Despite the mess and the cold and the wet and the mud (I probably weighed about ten pounds extra, between the mud and the water soaking me all the way to my underwear), we never stopped and never slowed down and kept coming up hard and aggressive. I was strong-side flanking again, though I ended up eighting for a bit at the end. We lost, not too surprisingly, but we definitely kept them from scoring as much as they could've AND scored a try against them! Final score: something - 5, Army.
I haven't done a lot of game writeups this season, but generally I'm beginning to feel really good about my playing. Between being sick and busy, I'm still not as strong or fast as I'd like to be, but technically I think I've really improved. I've started making different decisions in rucks (like long-body rucking or sealing over my teammates) and reacting to how both AU and the other team are arranged across the field. I've also gotten a lot better at scrumming - I've figured out flanking much better, and over just the past week or so I've really figured out a good locking body position.
I do still need to work on my form in tackles (I am aggressive and effective, but with better form I'd use less energy and hurt myself less), and I'd like to be a bit better at lineouts. Flanking, I'm not always off the scrum fast enough, and overall I do still have some work to do on field awareness and strategy - for example when to use a short vs. long lineouts, etc.
But there will always be room for improvement. Overall, I'm definitely feeling good!
More or less related: on Saturday, I experimented with wearing my new molded cleats (the ones with spike cleats) instead of metal. And, oh man, RIGHT CHOICE. Maybe not if I'd been locking, but my feet felt SO much lighter without those nasty heavy metal spikes weighing me down. If I ever feel the need to get metal again, I've gotta look smaller and lighter, but I think I'm sticking to molded for now.
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