ICEF Old Girls Not So Old
ICEF Old Girls Not So Old
Southern California named its two representatives to the Women’s Club 7s National Championship, and two very different sides are heading to Iowa. Defending champion San Diego Surfers will be looking for its third title and boasts a nice mix of hometown talent with players currently training at the Chula Vista OTC. The ICEF Old Girls, in its second year of existence, take the second seed after repeat runner-up finishes in the Flagstaff and Santa Barbara 7s qualifiers.
“We lost both finals to the Surfers, and pool games to them, too,” said ICEF Director of Rugby Stu Krohn, who is aided by co-coach David Hughes. “But we love playing them. They are the best, and we learn a lot each time we play.
“We finished 7th at national last year,” Krohn added. “We have improved as a team in our second year. We are still mercurial, but we are hoping to be at our best this year and to improve our standing.”
The term “Old Girls” is a bit deceptive in that many of the ICEF players are current college or high school students. The youngest of them is High School All American wing Nia Toliver, who will be a senior at View Park High School this year. Toliver has already impressed at home and abroad. Last year, she spent five months in New Zealand playing for Burnside High School and University of Canterbury, and returned home with 88 tries. She was then named to one of two Girls HSAA teams that competed at the LVI 7s, the program's first-ever competition.
“She’s special to watch,” Krohn confirmed.
Leading the team is captain Lauren Butler at flyhalf. The former All American will graduate from Cal this fall term, and she drives a hard, fast team game. Butler pairs nicely with scrumhalf Jennese Bacon, who is heading to Lindenwood University this fall as a junior.
A trio of incoming collegiate sophomores have made a big impression this summer: Domonique White from Humboldt State is a fast prop; Elona Williams earned player-of-the-year recognition at UC Irvine; and UC Riverside back Domonique Bellinger was a leading try-scorer during the team’s national championship run this year. Fellow Highlanders Marjau Sauve-Meneses and Tishani Finnikin enter their senior years of college, and they both hail from ICEF's middle and high school program.
All told, nine of 12 players return from last year’s national championship outing. The squad’s been playing above their age grade the previous two summers, knows what a national championship feels like, and has some chemistry to improve on last year’s finish. Regardless of how this year's tournament turns out, it's great to see the denser infusion of high school and college athletes into senior competitions.
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