By Zach Waltz
Sports Editor
The women’s rugby club will travel to New Hampshire for the regional playoffs. The semi-final game is against the University of New England tomorrow at 2 p.m.
Senior winger Meghan Kinney said the team’s biggest challenge will be facing a team they haven’t played before, but the team has been practicing harder to prepare themselves for the physical challenge.
“Going into regionals, our biggest concern is that we have not seen a team that has matched our playing level this season, and that is what we’ll be facing this weekend,” Kinney said. “We’ve been doing two-a-day practices in order to stay on top of our fitness. During practice, we are just trying to refine our game and be as mentally and physically prepared as we can possibly be.”
Junior fly half Rachel Noone said the Bonnies are not changing their game plan for their upcoming match against the Nor’easters.
“We are preparing for this match the same as we have been for every other one- working on the basics and expanding our game,” Noone said. “If we play our game, we have a chance against any team.”
If the Bonnies are able to win their first match, the championship game will take place on Sunday. The other semi-final game will be between Scared Heart University and Franklin Pierce College. Noone said the ultimate goal is to win the national championships, but first, the Bonnies must win two games this weekend.
“The mentality is to just take it week by week,” Noone said. “We want to make sure we don’t get ahead of ourselves and prepare one game at a time. Our end goal is nationals, but right now, we just have to focus on winning Saturday’s game and then Sunday’s.”
Kinney echoed this notion by saying that it’s important for the team to focus on the task ahead of them and to not think about the future.
“It is important to not try to just hold on from week to week,” Kinney said. “When we practice, we don’t tailor practice to win the upcoming game. We practice each day to win nationals. It’s important to keep that team goal in sight, and when your support group is 30 strong, it makes it easier to get it done.”
The Bonnies are coming off a win in the state championship against the University of Rochester, continuing their undefeated season. Noone said winning the title was a huge step for the women’s club.
“Winning the state championship is huge for the club as a whole,” Noone said. “Hopefully, it’ll help get our name out there and attract more players.”
The championship was perhaps even sweeter for Kinney after two consecutive disappointing seasons for the club.
“Winning this state championship has shown us how far we’ve come after struggling through two losing seasons,” Kinney said. “Our team has grown, and we have developed the skills and work ethic it takes to win games. Seeing hard work paid off in a victory is incredibly rewarding.”
Noone said the team was focused on making sure that the U of R didn’t walk away from the game with a win.
“The main plan was to play our game and make sure we didn’t go in over confident,” Noone said. “We didn’t want to give them any chance.”
Kinney said the Bonnies made a crucial decision to add some new plays to the playbook for the match, giving them the advantage over the Yellow Jackets.
“The only thing harder than beating a good team once is beating them twice,” Kinney said. “U of R put up a tough fight during our regular season game, and we knew they were only going to come back harder with an advantage of knowing our game. We introduced a few new offensive plays that U of R would not expect, but mostly, we just continued to work hard, run fast and tackle low.”
After the past two seasons, Kinney said the work the team put in during the offseason is finally starting to pay off.
“The difference in our team’s success has shown this season, but it was built in the spring- our off season,” Kinney said. “We put in countless hours at the Richter and on the pitch just getting down to the basics of the game and building the team up from there.”
