It was tough for the Morris U18 girls team to properly celebrate its New Jersey State Championship, as its competition didn’t enter the final at full strength. In fact, Morris was supposed to play South Jersey in Sunday’s final, but the standings runner-up had whittled down to four healthy CIPPed players, and third-place Union competed in its place. Morris won in convincingly fashion, shutting out Union 49-0 and claiming its third consecutive state title.

Morris got ahead quickly. Kat Ramage and Demi Pretorius, both of which returned from the National All Star Competition (NASC) the day prior, dotted down two tries apiece in the first 10 minutes. Morris coach Tom Feury, who was also at NASC for the Elite Coach Development Program, then pulled the two seniors and started working the bench. Players like Ramage, Pretorius, and Delia Hellander (who returned from the pre-NACRA 7s camp at the OTC) have been busy this spring, which began with select side trips to Las Vegas, followed by league season, high school nationals, High School Rugby Challenge (CRCs), and then NASCs in Virginia. Feury was looking to give their bodies a rest while also monitoring the scoreline.

Morris scored its points in the first half, as a combination of substitutions and Union's better-linking defense produced a stalemate of a second half. A couple of injuries saw Union drop to 14 players (Morris matched numbers), and then a third injury saw the teams agree to call the game 15 minutes early.

Although the state championship wasn’t the culminating performance Morris might have hoped for, the final did quantify the distance between itself and the rest of the state. Fortunately for the area, there are several select side opportunities – from the New Jersey Blaze to the state all-star team that will compete at Regional Cup Tournament – with which Morris is heavily involved and that players and staff can benefit.