California has sent nine players to the Girls High School All Americans (HSAA), which will make its debut at the Las Vegas Invitational 7s this week. SoCal’s Fallbrook and ICEF sent five athletes total, while NorCal’s Danville and Pleasanton sent four representatives. No other state sent more than two players, but there is one obvious benefit to having more than a third of the squad come from California: They’re all in-season and playing rugby right now, unlike the majority of the country.

The SoCal teams started their Winter Series of 7s and 10s tournaments in December, and now the 15s league is underway. Both Fallbrook and ICEF celebrated wins on Saturday, with the latter banking a 53-17 victory over Fullerton.

ICEF has missed the influence of recent grad and HSAA 7s player Diarr Lille, but fellow All American Nia Tolliver of New Zealand fame has been incredible in filling the void. She ran in eight tries (Genieva Burks scored the ninth) and slotted six conversions on Saturday, and will reunite with Lillie in Vegas.

Tolliver is the clear leader on the field, but ICEF girls coach Stu Krohn is hopeful for his team that sports a good mix of youth and experience.

“We have our most balanced team this year in terms of forward power and back speed,” Krohn said. “Our forwards can run with the ball and are supporting each other very well and look for the offload before they look for the ruck. That makes us fun to watch. And then we look to spin the ball into space very quickly and utilize our speed.”

ICEF will miss Tolliver as it competes in the LVI High School 7s division (the HSAAs are in the Elite 7s division), “but we'll be doing our best and I think will provide some compelling rugby to watch,” Krohn said. ICEF grad Diarr Lillie will also play with HSAAs.

Fallbrook will be competing in the LVI 15s competition, and they’ll be missing three All Americans: junior Olympians Michel Navarro and Richelle Stephens, and USA U20 fullback Lilly Durbin. But don’t worry about the Warriors – they’ve got depth and a solid cast of veterans: Kayla Canett, Alexi Eich, Alex Beckett, among many others.

Northern California scheduled a bye this weekend, so teams won’t miss any players for league play. But Danville and Pleasanton haven’t encountered too much resistance in their first two games thus far.

The Lady Oaks sent sisters Leti and Mata Hingano (and alum Fina Toetuu who is now at Central Washington) to the HSAAs, and they were major players in the team’s 41-17 win over Dixon and 89-0 victory over the Lancers.

The Cavaliers have been recording similar results: 115-0 win against Bishop O’Dowd and 46-10 over Dixon. In Saturday’s game, HSAA Emily Roskopf and senior flyhalf Teigan MacDonald scored three tries apiece, while flanker Kate Dadci and wing Sabrina Kim added a try each. Senior fullback Maria Bellamacina handled the conversions.

If one wants an even rounder view of what’s happening in California, then check out the Atlantis U19 teams, which has brought another 10 players from the state to Las Vegas. ICEF’s Domonique Bellinger and Fullerton’s Johanna Pasutin and Annakaren Pedraza represent SoCal. The Sacramento Amazons have freshman phenom Haungatau Malieti, Mary Jane Pasioles and flyhalf Mele Tausinga; Pleasanton gets extra representation through MacDonald and Loren Roundtree; while Ariana Lewis (Rancho Cordova) and Kianna Saffings (Dixon) do their home clubs proud.

Nineteen players from California - pretty impressive. Stay tuned as the season ramps up and these top-tier teams and players start facing off.