Women's rugby looks to continue success
- Published in the MSUM Advocate
- Sep 11, 2016
- 3 min read
MSUM women’s rugby team is back in action with new and returning players wrapping up their first week of practice. Though the team is fresh off a national championship, they don’t plan on slowing down any time soon.
“(For) this season, expect to see some new players on the field,” said Kiah Vanasse, president of the women’s rugby team. “I think everyone on the team is hoping to make it back to nationals. We keep our standards high, and I think that’s really going to show this season.”
Despite having lost several starting players from last year, the team is confident in their abilities and have high hopes for the upcoming season.
“I think it was a big loss,” Vanasse said. “We’re definitely going to miss them, they were a big part of our team. But we have some strong new players coming in, so I think we can still make it to nationals and we can still perform like we did last year.”
But what makes the women’s rugby team so successful? What makes them unique? For starters, each player walked onto the pitch with no rugby experience.
“We get people from all different backgrounds of athletics,” field captain Lexi Byler said. “So we have hockey players, basketball players, soccer players. They each bring their own unique skills to the sport, and that’s part of the reason we’re so successful.”
“Part of the reason why our team is so strong is because our players come in with no prior experience,” said Vanasse. “It makes them feel more welcome and they are more confident in themselves because they know that they can start from the bottom, because everyone else on the team started out just like them.”
The team also has a unique offensive setup that makes them hard to defend.
“Unlike a lot of other teams, we have a tendency to not use set plays, said Athena Aitken, head coach of the MSUM women’s rugby team. “We play from the heart and that’s what makes us unique, and it’s also what makes us unpredictable. We’re not afraid to make long risky passes and we’re not afraid to play using our instincts.”
Last year, the team went undefeated in regular season. In the 12 games they played last season, they scored a total of 670 points. The cumulative points they allowed to be scored against them? If you add all 12 teams together, only 53 points were allowed. That’s an average of less than five points per game. Aitken hopes to take their explosive offense and make it even more formidable.
“This year our expectations are to sharpen it up,” said Aitken. “The goal for last year’s freshman and sophomores is to sharpen their game up and get to the next level. Obviously, in college there’s only four years to learn a new sport and to improve to the level that we’re at right now, so it’s pretty competitive. For the upperclassmen our goal is to have each player become a leader. We need all sorts of different leaders so that’s the expectation for our older players.”
There is one big change coming for fans this season.
“We actually have home games this year, so that’s something new for our fans,” says Aitken.
Vanasse says she hopes fans will take full advantage of the home games; adding that without their strong support system backing them up, the team may not be as accomplished.
“The school’s support makes us successful,” said Vanasse. “Without organizations like Student Activity Budget Committee (SABC) to fund our trips to nationals, the people working with club sports, and all of the faculty members that are always congrating us – without that support we wouldn’t be as successful as we are now. So this year I really hope people will come out and cheer us on. Our fan support is so important and we feed off of everything they give us.”
The women’s first official game is Sept. 17, at the College of St. Benedict in St. Joseph, Minnesota. Their first home game is on Oct. 1 against Bemidji State University.
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