By Skye Tulio
Assignment Sports Editor
The women’s rugby team closed its fall season last Saturday with a 68-0 loss against UB. The Bonnies ended the season with a winning 4-3 record, just one point away from making the playoffs.
Senior fly-half Kayla O’Keefe said the team went in to the game with a positive mindset but could not get a leg up on the Bulls.
“We went in with a great mentality,” O’Keefe said. “We told ourselves we were going to at least score because UB blew out its previous competitors 85-0 and we just didn’t want to have that reputation.”
The undefeated Bulls started off hot, leading 15-0 by the half. O’Keefe said the Bonnies did a nice job of holding off their competitors in the first.
“Our first half was amazing, we only held them to three tries, which is actually pretty good,” O’Keefe said. “We’re not a very good second-half team, but we were all like ‘Okay, let’s do this; we can at least score once.’ I don’t know what happened but they scored two tries within five minutes and from there it was like well there’s no way we’re going to catch up.”
Senior flank Kelly Sperrazzo said the Bonnies knew what they were up against in taking on the Bulls.
“We kind of expected it,” Sperrazzo said. “In one of their games the score got to triple digits. I mean it’s UB, they have 20,000 people, they’re destined to find 15 very athletic girls to build their team.”
Both O’Keefe and Sperrazzo noted how the weather affected the team’s play.
“It was a tough game,” Sperrazzo said. “The weather conditions were horrible; We had to keep moving the scrums and eventually had to stop because it was so slippery. It was literally pure mud and puddles.”
Toward the end of the match, the Bonnies put rookies in to replace some of their seniors.
“They actually did pretty well, they tackled and caught the ball when it was very hard to catch the ball,” O’Keefe said. “I was really proud of the effort they put forth.”
This season, the division’s playoffs moved from the fall to the spring due to the team’s division move.
“The playoffs were in the fall last year because we only had five regular season games,” Sperrazzo said. “This year, since we’re Divison II we have seven regular season games so the playoffs are in the spring.”
In the Empire Rugby Football Union Geographic Union, the team’s new division, the top three teams make the playoffs. Before the loss to UB, the Bonnies held the third spot.
The women were beat by Fredonia (4-2) after the Blue Devils tied their game, 0-0 with Ithaca (2-4). The Blue Devils earned 20 total points after their win over the Bombers compared to the Bonnies 19, bumping them to the third seed. Leaving, Geneseo (5-2) and UB to claim second and first place, respectively.
O’Keefe said she’s pleased with the team’s winning record since making the change to D II.
“I think it’s pretty good, especially since we didn’t really know who we were coming in to face,” O’ Keefe said. “We’d seen a lot of the competitors last spring when we played against them in tournaments and we beat some of them. Like, Brockport we played and we won one and we tied one against them so we knew we could get them and we did. That was really exciting.”
The team used some interesting methods to research its newest division competitors via Facebook, according to O’Keefe.
“Once we found out who we were going to face, we did a lot of Facebook creeping,” O’Keefe said. “Also, some of our girls actually knew some of the girls on the other teams and they tried to get as much information as they could without being obvious.”
The Bonnies used this to familiarize themselves with the other players and the way they play the game.
“So we kind of went in like ‘Okay we know they’re fly-half does this or does that’ we tried to work on that during practices,” O’Keefe said. “Then when it came to game time we really just had to feel the water and figure out what they were going to do and how we should react.”
The Bonnies lose four seniors to graduation in December. Sperrazzo noted winning last year’s West Division III New York State Rugby Conference title as a highlight of her Bonaventure career.
“It’s exciting especially last year being on the last New York State Championship team because they’re not doing state championships anymore, so we’re the last team to have won it and that’s definitely cool,” Sperrazzo said.
O’Keefe also said she’s grateful for her time with the Bonnies, previously known as the Legends.
“I’m sad to leave, but I’m happy I had the opportunity to play with a great team and great friends,” O’Keefe said. “It was an awesome experience and they really are like my second family.”
