Nationals

Well, it's all over. I will not play any sort of rugby until February when we start indoor stuff. We came in fourth at Nationals, so I am not quite through being disappointed yet. In a few weeks, I will reflect and think about how wonderful it is to be the fourth-best team in the whole country.

I must say that I was thoroughly impressed with the tournament in Raleigh this year. From the moment we stepped off the bus at the Raleigh Rugby complex, I was in heaven. For starters, it was 70 degrees and sunny. Raleigh has two amazing pitches back in a little wooded area with scoreboards, wooden dugouts, sponsor banners, the works. They had a Godek trailer full of rugby gear, excellent sausage sandwiches with onion sauce (among other things to eat...but who are we kidding? Nothing is better than a sausage sandwich with grilled onions after a rugby game. The pitches were in such excellent condition that it was for sure a speedy-back-boots sort of day.

I didn't get to watch many of the matches I wasn't playing in, so I don't have anything to say about them, but I was so proud of how the Angels played in all of our games. We came out so strong against Seacoast and scored in the opening minutes of the match. We lost our intensity a bit in the middle of the game, but for the most part stuck to our game plan and our backs went for some nice runs all day long. My favorite part of the match was the moment I found myself somehow in close support of Dr. Parker on the wing and she popped the ball to me when she got tackled. How the heck did I get out there? Why wasn't I in the middle of the field in a ruck? I don't know, but it was awesome.

The Albany game was so sad for me. We came out so strong and made a really hard statement right away. We drove them back in the scrums and were really quick on defense and had nice continuity on offense. I was, of course, excited to tackle Claudia Braymer, both because I played with her at Penn State and also because she is an Eagle. We had watched a bit of the Albany game from earlier and I knew we had to be up quick on the fringe to catch that sneaky little scrumhalf. It was 3-0 after we slotted a penalty goal early in the match and stayed that way until the end, when Albany won two well-fought tries to take the game and make their way to the final. I felt exactly like I felt my junior year when we lost to Air Force in the semifinals 8-10. We tried so hard, played our best, brought our A game, and we just didn't finish on top. It gives me so much fire for next year, I'll tell you what.

I'll post about Sunday later, because our bus didn't get in until 230 in the morning and I just had to drag my sleepy bag to work and run a reading comprehension session with a student who didn't understand the "lie" behind a fake orgasm. I can't even imagine what I told that student about society's expectations on women...never tutor while tired!