Western Front Women’s Rugby defeats the University of Washington

from Western Front Online:

A foe one game, then a friend the next.

Western’s women’s rugby team played against the University of Washington late Saturday morning, then the two teams combined their players to face Oregon State University in the afternoon.

Western senior Lauren Vanderlugt said playing against the University of Washington was tougher than the Western Flames thought it was going to be.

“The UW was really aggressive,” Vanderlugt said. “They had a really strong drive.”

The Flames were throwing away a lot of the balls, Vanderlugt said. At the end of the first half, the score was tied 7-7.

Because the Flames had been expecting an easier match, they had played most of their rookies in the first half. For the second half, rookies were replaced by seasoned players.

The rucks, which had been weak earlier in the game, looked good in the second half, Vanderlugt said. A ruck is when players gather around the ball dropped by a tackled player and try to regain possession. It is similar to the formation of a scrum.

While Western stepped it up in the second half, the University of Washington faltered.

Western made five tries in the second half while Washington made none. Western seniors Kelsey Stuart and Keshia Rumberger helped the Flames score in the second half. One score was made after a Flame blocked a kick and picked up the tumbling ball.

The Flames sustained three injuries during the game against Washington. Western senior Katie Sauerbrey ended up at the hospital after the game thinking she might have torn something in her knee.

The final score for the Western versus Washington game resulted in a Western win of 34-7.

After a two-and-a-half hour break the Flames combined their team with the Huskies to take on Oregon State University.

“The UW didn’t have enough girls to field a team for another half and we were struggling too,” Vanderlugt said. “We had talked about whether we wanted Western to play OSU in two halves and then have UW play in another half. We passed a few ideas around.”

It was decided Washington would wear Western jerseys and the teams would combine.

“Oregon State is a Division I team, so any chance they get to play they’re down for it,” Vanderlugt said.

Oregon State scored often on the combined team. In the first half Oregon made five tries and six in the second half. Western senior Mitra Akavan was the only person to score in the game.

“We were playing with people we’d never played with before,” Western senior Sarah Falk said. “Even though we lost to OSU pretty bad, I felt good about it. I felt like people learned a lot and that this is what we need to do to play a higher level of rugby.”

Most of the scores completed by Oregon State were due to the team finding a hole in Western’s flat-line defense and speeding through it.

“It was really interesting playing with UW—they have coaches and we don’t,” Falk said.

During the game Washington players would remind Western players to keep a flat-line in defense, Falk said.

Western lost the friendly game against Oregon State 67-7.

The Flames’ next game is against Seattle University in Seattle on March 6. Western’s next home game will be March 13, at the turf field next to the Wade King Student Recreation Center against Washington State University.

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