New York Upsets Berkeley in Women’s Premier League, San Diego Tops Division I at USA Rugby National Championships

I had a blast commentating on all the matches yesterday on Ustream. Thanks for listening and the kind comments in the chat room are greatly appreciated. It was difficult to commentate on two matches at a time but I wanted to make sure that as much information as possible was available. The archived videos should be up in a week or so, I will post once I know something.

Also it was great to meet so many fans in person…thanks for approaching me!

from USA Rugby:

SAN FRANCSICO – USA Rugby concluded its two day Women’s Club National Championships on Sunday afternoon in front of over 500 fans at the Gaelic Athletic Association’s fields on Treasure Island.

With the crowd saturated in both blue and orange, New York handed the Berkeley All-Blues its first loss of the inaugural Women’s Premier League season, beating the top-ranked local side, 20-10, for the title.

The very physical encounter saw both teams ready for an intense rematch of last year’s DI Championship game, but in the end New York was able to wear Berkeley down, scoring two tries late in the second half to secure a large enough lead despite a brief comeback by the Northern California side.

Earlier in the day, the Women’s Division I competition saw the San Diego Surfers beat NOVA for their respective national title.

San Diego was a clear favorite early on, scoring the first try of the match just a minute in. Although the Southern California team wouldn’t score again until well into the second half, they did hold NOVA scoreless throughout. The Surfers walked away with a 14-0 victory and the top honors in Division I for 2009.

The third-place match in Division I, featuring Atlanta and Seattle, unfolded in a similar fashion as Atlanta’s rock solid defense helped secure the win. Atlanta walked away with the well-earned ‘w’, and a 10-0 shutout over the Breakers.

In other Women’s Premier League matches, Beantown walked away with the win over Minnesota Valkyries, 27-7. Led by Liz Terry, who scored two tries for the Boston side, Beantown was able to secure third place in the WPL’s first season.

Washington D.C. and Keystone also came out on top during the second day in the Bowl bracket. The D.C. Furies beat Oregon Sports Union 27-5 to finish seventh, while Keystone overtook the Twin City Amazons 36-10 to bring home the Bowl. Ida Bernstein led Keystone in the win, scoring back-to-back tries for the Philadelphia team.