BY: Aidan Shinners, Contributing Writer
On Jan. 25-26, the St. Bonaventure women’s rugby team was represented by five athletes at the Collegiate Rugby All-Stars Women’s 7’s National Cup in Atlanta, Georgia.
Graduate students Makenna Ramsey and Kaylee Middaugh along with senior Ashlee Reid and sophomores Natalie Lamar and Mia Popp were selected to compete. They were joined by Bonnies head coach Meredith Pyke in representing the Upstate New York Collegiate Rugby Conference All-Stars.
The tournament took place over a span of two days, the first a round-robin within each team’s randomly selected pool of teams. Following pool play, qualified teams will compete in a bracket or in consolation matches to determine their official placing in the tournament
The Upstate Conference finished their pool play with losses to the Big Ten, North Atlantic and Rugby Northeast Conferences and did tally a win over the South Atlantic conference.
The 1-3 record was enough to earn the Upstate Conference a final matchup against the Great Waters Conference.
The Upstate Conference ended their tournament in 7th place following a 21-10 victory over Great Waters.
2023 MVP Kaylee Middaugh finished the tournament with 24 points which was enough to finish second on the team, Makenna Ramsey also tallied five points in the tournament.
Five-time all-star and two-time All-American Makenna Ramsey led the Bonnies in scoring this past season and said she was very happy to represent her team in a fifth all-star game.
“It reminds me that hard work does pay off,” Ramsey said. “I’m excited to play with other skilled players from different schools.”
Ramsey said her favorite moment of the season was defeating Walsh University in their first Division I level game.
“Walsh was our first challenge game of our first Division I season,” Ramsey said. “When we beat them, I knew we made the right choice in going DI. We were able to hang with the big dogs.”
The 2021-22 women’s rugby MVP is working on her master’s in sports management and plans to continue her rugby career post-graduation.
2024 All-American and Bonnies sophomore Natalie Lamar mentioned that the team’s veteran players, such as Middaugh and Ramsey, are examples of who she and other players on the team strive to be like both on and off the field.
“They are all pivotal to our success,” Lamar said. “They are all leaders on and off the field.”
Lamar thanked her teammates for helping her get to this point in her career after being named to her second all-star tournament.
“I feel so blessed to have great teammates and coaches at Bona’s,” Lamar said. “They have helped me grow as a player.”
The most impactful person in Lamar’s career to this point has been Ashlee Reid, Lamar said. She said she’s learned a lot from her fellow all-star and wouldn’t be where she is today without Reid.
Looking forward to next season, Lamar said the team needs to work on their transitions from offense to defense.
“It was a weakness for us,” Lamar said. “Especially when we faced our hardest competition.”
She added that the team needs to learn from their losses and build on their success from the past few seasons if they want to achieve what they were unable to during this past season, a victory in the National Championship.
