The Massachusetts women’s club rugby A-side recorded its first win of the fall season Sunday afternoon after taking down Boston University 61-22.
The Minutewomen (1-3) hosted the Terriers on the UMass rugby field for their fourth 15s matchup of the fall season. Sunday afternoon’s victory is the first for the Minutewomen’s A-side after falling 53-10 to Northeastern on the road in their previous match.
“A win is always a good thing. Happy for the team that this was the first win of the year,” head coach Chris St. Onge said. “Every week we have been building a little bit better than the week before…People have been putting in the work at training and it [has] been paying off and we’ve been on in the sending arc.”
The Minutewomen improved with seven different try scorers in Zoe Krief, Sarah Brookman, Emma Cullen, Isa Manley, Rebecca Ciaffi, Norah Lee and Ella Gander. Brookman and Ciaffi were the top scorers of the afternoon, scoring three tries and a try and eight conversions respectively.
In addition to being on the scoresheet three times, Brookman made it difficult for BU in its rucks. Late in the first half she received a yellow card for having her hands in one of the Terriers ruck’s, leaving the Minutewomen with 14 players on the field. Towards the end of the second half she received her second yellow and remained off the field for the remainder of play time for diving into another one of their rucks.
In the first minute of the second half, the Minutewomen were able to kickstart their scoring after setting up a scrum near the try line. Scrum half Shelby Ball received the ball from the back and passed to Emma Cullen who started the momentum, ultimately ending in their fifth try of the matchup and extending their lead to 33-0.
A few minutes later, the Terriers got onto the scoresheet, scoring their first try of the matchup. However, they were unable to convert, only gaining five points on the Minutewomen. Despite missing their first conversion, BU was able to score a few more times but was unable to overcome the deficit to UMass.
Following the Terriers first try, the Minutewomen scored twice unanswered, stretching their lead and securing their win.
“We did a better job [with] our defensive launch, coming up off the line defensively, coming up flat we were much better… We still don’t have an all-out speed rush where we’re coming up hard, we’re sort of coming up at a jog,” St. Onge said. “It would be more effective sprinting up [because] we would close the distance on the offense much quicker.”
St. Onge also looks to improve the Minutewomen’s offloading as their fall season begins to wrap up. In order to do this, he wants them to offload a bit earlier rather than at the “very last minute” and therefore already know who will be receiving the ball. In doing this in Sunday’s matchup, he believes they would have scored more than the hefty amount they did.
“Hopefully we get another two or three games in and find some dance partners to dance with us and then we’ve got the ability to just see how good we can be,” St. Onge said. “There’s a lot of potential, a lot of athletic young people on this team which is really good to see and a lot of really hard workers.”
The Minutewomen will be back on the road for their fifth game of the fall season against the University of Rhode Island on Oct. 19. The time of kickoff is yet to be announced.
Emma Bensley can be reached at [email protected]
