BOULDER, Colo. – Twenty-seven young female athletes will make history next weekend as the first women’s under-18 national team to compete in a 15s match as the Girls High School All-Americans powered by ATAVUS head north of the border for a two-match series against BC Rugby U18 Women’s.

Brentwood College School in British Columbia will host the Friday, Aug. 21, and Sunday, Aug. 23, match days.

Head Coach Farrah Douglas, along with assistant coaches Emilie Bydwell and Anna Kunkel, selected the majority of the touring squad from the most recent Stars and Stripes Camp at University of Northern Colorado. Three players – Lilly Durbin, Becca Jane Rosko, and Nia Toliver – represented the GHSAAs in the Olympic format of Rugby Sevens at the Las Vegas Invitational tournament.

The 47-strong Camp in Greeley served a variety of purposes for both coaches and players. With Douglas overseeing the coach development side of things, as well as taking note of which players could make the international jump, Bydwell and Kunkel were able to focus on teaching the Women’s Eagles game plan.

“Out attack plan we started to institute at Stars and Stripes was similar to what the senior team did at the Women’s Rugby Super Series,” Douglas said. “That would’ve been hard for us to be able to try without having Anna and Emilie as part of the Camp coaching staff.

“That’s the new challenge for us: asking the high school players to play the game the way the senior team is going to be playing the game.”

The restructure of the Women’s Eagles Pathway earlier in the year ensured there would be more cooperation between the senior national team and the age-grade programs. With the support of ATAVUS, the formation of and subsequent competitive opportunities for the GHSAAs will give more young girls an entry point into the pathway.

“The game is growing at an exponential level at the age-grade level,” Douglas said. “If we think about what we hope to accomplish long-term, it’s to be able to consistently compete with the top-tier teams. For us to be able to compete, we have to start to develop that piece of our high performance program, and I think what ATAVUS has done is provided us with some resources to do that.

“We are now one of the first entry points into the pathway. It’s really about making sure the players understand how we want to play the game internationally, and what skills, positional and individual, they need to be successful at those levels of the game, and putting them in the environment to do that.”

Before the February tournament in Sin City, Durbin represented the U.S. as an AIG Women’s Junior All-American, while Leah Ingold attended the National All-Star Competition this summer as an under-20 candidate.

Toliver, who has spent time playing rugby abroad in New Zealand and comes from the highly-rated ICEF Rugby program in Los Angeles, recently competed at the 2015 USA Rugby Emirates Airline Club 7s National Championships.

“I hope that, in addition to bringing leadership to the team, the more experienced players will be able to facilitate some of the understanding in terms of what we’re looking to accomplish on attack and defense, because they’ve had the time working with the WJAA coaching staff as well as the veteran players that are represented in that side,” Douglas said.

The GHSAAs are scheduled to train at Central Washington University alongside the WJAAs beginning Tuesday, Aug. 18, before leaving for Brentwood Thursday, Aug. 20.