UNC Women's Rugby is all about teamwork, camaraderie and sisterhood, all of which have been a tradition at the University of North Carolina for 15 years. Are you UNC Tarheel's ranked 12 in the Nation
Some words from a fellow UNC rugger - Malia Losordo,
On Friday morning we played 4th seeded Brown University in the Sweet Sixteen. Brown brought a very experienced, well-organized, fast, fit and physical team that played an excellent game. They kept possession for the majority of the game and capitalized on our mistakes to deliver 6 unanswered tries. A relatively inexperienced front row, resulting from ACL and foot injuries in our starting props, left our scrum (for lack of better words) somewhat crippled, making it difficult to mount a strong attack. However,we Tar Heels fought hard on defense, driving the Bears back from the try zone countless times. In the end, we lost a respectable 34-0 to one of the best college teams in the country. In the day's other match, #12 Virginia gained the win, which set us against #5 Texas A&M for Saturday's consolation match. We knew we had many adjustments to make to our play and our mindset before then.
Saturday morning brought us head-to-head with Texas, a large and hard-hitting team. The game was tough and sometimes messy but this time our hearts were set on victory. We knew we had to win to advance the South's seeding in future tournaments. Mindset and focus made all the difference in this match's outcome. On Saturday we focused on more efficient rucks, dilligent posting, and being quicker in support on both offense and defense. We were able to shut-down Texas' attempts to pass the ball out quickly and create overloads by recycling on defense. The final score was UNC 19, Texas A&M 10. Two tries were scored by scrumhalf Hanna Samad, one by winger Dianna Houenou and two conversions were made by flyhalf Kimber Rozier.
This has been an exciting season, with amazing wins and exciting losses to some of the nation's top-ranked teams. Nationals was an amazing experience for our young team. We will greatly miss our seniors Jessica Hogan, Margaret Lucas, Jenna Smith and Maeghan Sill but look forward to the Fall '09 and Spring '10 seasons when we hope to continue to improve and establish UNC as a name in women's collegiate rugby.
UNCWRFC Qualifies for NATIONALS!!!
The University of North Carolina Women's Rugby Football Club has qualified for the Sweet 16s. Once again UNCWRFC has proved to be the cream of the crop, amongst the 16 best WRFCs in the Nation. Hard work, dedication, and a relentless fighting spirit has brought our team this far, even when we struggled to fill 15 players for a match. The life of a student and a successful rugger is a hard one to balance, but we persevered!
11 am Friday morning, we play our first opponent - Brown University... Everything from this point on is a plus... having reached our goal of going to Nationals once again.
Philanthropy
On November 22, 2008 the UNRBA Tree Planting Service project took place and Carolina Women's Rugby served as helping hands to plant trees along the Upper Neuse River basin. It was a fun day of tree planting philanthropy extravaganzas! A special thanks goes to our Philanthropy chair, Malia Losordo, for organizing the event and discovering great opportunites for UNCWRFC to help give back to our community. A link to the photos is here, and a link to the UNRBA Blog is here.
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee
Rugby is more then just a game of brute strength and determination, it is a mind game where the team with the clearest most fluid attack style and way of playing, this so called technique, will prevail and the movement of the ball around opponents instead of crashing into them will be of utmost importance to each and every player who handles the ball at this level of Rugby. Take a word from our coach and start thinking about how to get around the player, and not always imagining what you would do after getting taken down to the dirt...
