Girls 7s Update: STA Forms Team, And More
Girls 7s Update: STA Forms Team, And More
A new team, and some contenders chowing as we look at girls HS 7s this week.
St. Thomas Aquinas in the Kansas City area has unveiled a brand-new girls team. Girls within the school have been enthusiastic about emulating the boys and getting a rugby team going. Head Coach Tim Kluempers basically said, if you have enough players interested, then he will support it. With the interest, Kluempers went to the school and the athletic department, and they gave the green light.
"Caroline Boerfler and Evie Husley did the work and made it happen," said Kluempers. "They got 10 girls ready to play. They've been amazing."
Playing within Missouri Youth Rugby in 7s, the STA team got on the field for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Kluempers did not feel the players were ready for contact so the games were touch only. They played well, going unbeaten in those games, and a week later entered into the MYR full-contact tournament, coming away with their first victory, 21-12 over Liberty on a 1-2 day. Bailey Francis was named to the week's dream team.
"Two girls played in our youth league and one more is a sister of one of our players," said Kluempers. "The rest are new to the sport. I said to the girls is, you've got to communicate. You get buy-in from there. And I also told them, you're the first, how cool is that? You get to start it off."
For the rest of the action, Liberty North beat Park Hill 17-15 and Aquinas 19-12, while dropping a 27-5 decision to Liberty HS. Park Hill tied Liberty 5-5 and beat Aquinas 26-0.
So Park Hill ended up 2-0-1, Liberty North ended up 2-1, Liberty logged a 1-1-1 record, and Aquinas finished 1-2.
There aren't a lot of co-ed Catholic schools, but the ones that are out there are actually well-placed to start a girls team. The consensus does seem to be that players and coaches, and especially energetic parents, need to push for more school teams, rather than clubs, for girls.
"We're bringing in the traditions from the boys team," said Kluempers (like honoring top players with a big cowboy hat). "And we talk about this with all of the players; you're part of the program. Boy or girl, you're part of the Aquinas rugby program."
Five teams are atop the standings in Iowa after the first week of action. Ankeny, Cedar Falls, Des Moines Roosevelt, SE Polk, and Waverly Shell Rock all went 2-0 on Monday's first day of action.
DM Roosevelt's Sadie Denner scored five tries in her team's wins over Norwalk and Mason City. Avalon Burns and Grace Fober both scored four tries for Cedar Falls in their victories over Central Springs and Valley. Morgan Roth of Norwalk and Felicity Severs of SE Polk also got to four in two games.
In New Jersey Morris hosted a series of games and there Doylestown out of Pennsylvania was very impressive. They moved the ball with confidence, put players to work off the ball to extend the line, and played strong pressure defense.
