After building the program over the last several years, the UCSD women’s rugby team has had much success on the field, and has graduated enough players to establish an annual alumni tradition. The Tritons finished with a 3-3 record, a season that has not lived up to past successes, but on May 20, the team left the regular season behind, as old and new players gathered to play their second annual alumni game.
After weeks of taunting, the women’s rugby team’s alumni made good on their threats and dominanted the current squad in a less-than-amiable match to conclude the Tritons’ 3-3 season.
While this exhibition game was for fun, it was clear that no one wanted to lose. Both teams refused to ease off, even after a couple of minor injuries. Sophomore scrum-half Alexis Volen, who bruised her knee, described the pregame trash talk.
“[The alumni players] started off by sending us e-mails about how they were going to destroy us,” Volen said. “And we sent them back e-mails saying we weren’t scared.”
In reality, the alumni team greatly outperformed the current UCSD players. The Tritons sent out a very young team with little rugby experience, while the alumni featured several All-Americans, including a player for the national team. These great players scored first, fast and often for the alumni team. The current UCSD team tried its best to make a little noise of its own, but its older opponents were too fast and too aggressive.
“It’s a very tough team playing against my very young girls here,” head coach Carla Smith said. “They’re getting a good schooling.”
Even though the game was hard- fought, both teams also stressed having fun, making each player do a dance after a score. But in the end, the alumni won in blowout fashion and the young Tritons learned a thing or two about rugby.
Alumni player Mari Wallace, who graduated in 2003, had no problem dishing out a little more trash talk after the game.
“It was like the dream team against the little UCSD girls,” she said. “But basically, they’re definitely in a building year and they gave us a good game: I think the score was a million to five or something. We’re obviously awesome.”
With 10 main players graduating and numerous injuries plaguing the Tritons all year, the team was not its usual dominant self and finished a dissappoing 3-3 on the year.
UCSD started off the season with a three-game winning streak, beating UCLA twice and Arizona State University once. But injuries to older, experienced players like captain and fly-back Marea Blue, led to inexperienced players getting immediate playing time. By the halfway point of the season, five seniors were injured, and the Tritons lost their last three games to end the season.
“We are used to being dominant in our league, so losing even one game would have been a disappointment,” Blue said. “But our league is better than it’s ever been, which is positive in the long run, and our team has a lot of promising talent.”
While the skills and leadership of the injured starters were missed, their absence provided an opportunity to build for the future. In their last two games, the players still had opportunities to win, only losing because of a few mistakes here and there.
“Almost all our rookies got to play,” Smith said. “While we did lose those games in the end, the rookies got so much experience.”
In its previous four seasons, UCSD went to nationals, only to lose to the eventual champions. Both Blue and Smith expect to be back at that level with the help of solid play by senior 8-man and captain of the forwards Jill Duggan.
“The forwards have to do most of the grunt work on the field, which can be exhausting,” Blue said. “Jill leads by example, getting in most of the rucks and consistently hitting tackles.”
Next season, coach Smith wants to avoid another rebuilding year, as she expects to return 11 starters, who she says have learned from experience and will start to dominate once again.
“We’ve had a lot more rookies this year having to take over for the seniors that left,” Smith said. “It’s just getting a new group of people to learn how to play rugby and get back to our national form.”
