JMU wins NOVA Women’s College 7s and Qualifies for Nationals

This Sunday, October 27th, the NOVA Women’s Rugby Club hosted a Qualifying Tournament for Collegiate 7s teams at Signal Hill Park in Manassas, VA.

In the Women’s Bracket their was excellent play from the top four teams JMU, UVA, BC and GWU.

Boston College was able to travel with 12 players to the tournament, was well organized and had some very impressive young talent. Boston College has competed in both 7s  National Championships to date and that experience showed on the field especially from seniors Pauli Rodis and Addison Powell. GWU women coached by Mary Anderson, has their first taste of 7s and performed admirably.

UVA is a consistent rugby power house, filled with skilled athletes in both 7s and 15s and their runner-up performance was no surprise. The dynamic pairing of Brianna Kim and Cecile Maurelli at scrumhalf and flyhalf respectively contributed to their potent offensive. Though they have not automatically qualifed for Nationals, it is almost certain that they will recieve an At-Large bid to Nationals based on their well developed sevens program.

JMU only was scored on twice the entire day which was very impressive and UVA looked very strong in their win over BC in the semi finals. The tournament directors selected MVP Steph Goetz as the tournament MVP, for both her dangerous offensive, but also a big tackle against UVA in the Final, that turned the tide of the game. Sophmore Kayla Cook stepped in at flyhalf from prop and was able to effectively move the ball to outside JMU’s outside speed Goetz and Emily Fullbrook. Senior leader Callie Raddy was a stalwart all day, even after playing every mintue of every game there was no drop off in the final and was exceptional in the final match.

The Maryland team that won the Challenge Final over Johns Hopkins fielded a competitive side, coached by Lance Pruett, they improved throughout the day and solidly beat Hopkins in the Challange Final. MVP of the Challenge match was given to winger Alexis Gear who was the leading scorer in the final, she was set-up for two of her tries by center Dawn Smith, who also had an outstanding performance all day.

NOVA hosted a free one-hour 7s clinic, directly following the final match. The Clinic was well recieved by players and was led by Dana Creager, who is on the USA Olympic Development staff in addition to her duties as the MARFU and NOVA 7s head coach.  Other guest coaches, included current and former USA 7s Eagles Beth Black, Lauren Hoeck and CJ Hildreth.

Photos were taken throughout the day by Shaun Collins. All the photos will be available for purchase shortly from the One World United Photos website located here: http://www.owuphotos.com/USA-Rugby-Qualifying-7s

Women’s Champion – JMU

Women’s Championship Runner- Up- UVA

Women’s Challenge – Maryland

               Pool A

                UVA 19 v. American 5

                Maryland 19 v. GWU 24

                UVA v. GWU

                Maryland 22 v. American 20

                Maryland 27 v. UVA 5

                GWU 10 v. American 5

                Pool B

                BC 31 v. Collegiate Mixed 0

                JMU 39 v. Hopkins 0

                BC  34 v. Hopkins 0

                JMU 26 v. Collegiate Mixed 10

                BC 0 v. JMU 40

                Hopkins 0 v. Collegiate Mixed 32   

 

Women’s National Qualifying Sevens Tournaments

 

10/5/2013	Southwest Women’s RC
10/27/2013	NOVA Collegiate 7s
11/9/2013	Big Ten Universities
11/9/2013	Stanford Invitational
11/9/2013	SIRC