jcollingsworth
Guest
Let’s Talk Ohio State Women’s Rugby in 2016
jcollingsworth via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
The summer is here. We all feel the heat. It will only get hotter. Relief is seemingly only found in a swift dive into a pool, or an ice cold drink (preferably pool side). The sports of choice to engage in, either watching or playing is baseball, or softball.
But I have a hint of something to look forward to – Rugby. The Ohio State University Women’s Rugby team is ready too for the 2016 season.
Before we can understand what is to come – let us glance over what transpired this past spring.
The spring season had been dedicated to the 7-A-side version of the game; which is a perfect opportunity to sharpen individual skills and improve a fitness level.
This is a time of the year where no conference, which includes the Big Ten, does not organize a full schedule. Each team must then go hunting for tournaments! The great benefit to this is that it assigns opportunities in competition to any level that a coaching staff is seeking to better their squad.
The Buckeyes Women’s Rugby Team and Head Coach Joel Bonnaud decided that the best for the players’ development was to focus on becoming the best – and we all know to become the best, you must play the best – Ohio State went to the highest level tournaments possible this past spring.
The first one was hosted by Lindenwood (St Charles, MO – #2 team in the country), and it allowed the Buckeyes to set the mark for the rest of the season in terms of workload required to reach top level.
A month later was the Atlanta Invitational. Hosted by USA Rugby – this is a quite unique event. Ohio State was able to play against the best teams across the country; they, too, had the opportunity to watch live the International Series, featuring the best Women rugby athletes from around the world.
The Buckeyes also hosted its own tournament. This one had local flavor as teams were coming from Cleveland area and outskirts of *ichigan.
All of those steps served for one purpose: getting ready for the College Rugby Championship in Philadelphia, first weekend of June. In the spread of over 3 days, players had to learn to handle all the downtime between pressure games, which certainly cannot be an easy task! However, despite few ups and downs (Loss to Lindenwood, Win vs Arizona and Kutztown, then a loss to Penn State), the Buckeyes landed in 7th position after winning a very close game vs Princeton.
This Fall season, if the Spring is an indication, shows that the Buckeyes Women’s Rugby Team is ready and quite capable to make a run for tremendous improvement from last year. These ladies are hard workers that love the game of Rugby. It shows too. The feisty spirit embedded by Coach Bonnaud into the Program is beginning to take hold. This coming season look for the names of Cyndi Campbell, McKenna Cimperman, Tori Fantozzi, Brittany Morrison, Darby High and Anna Smoot (who has a wonderful outlook towards the great sport of Rugby) to be mentioned often and positively.
We shall be back before September to break down this team and get the fire brewing in all of us for the promising year to come.
The post Let’s Talk Ohio State Women’s Rugby in 2016 appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
Continue reading...
jcollingsworth via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
The summer is here. We all feel the heat. It will only get hotter. Relief is seemingly only found in a swift dive into a pool, or an ice cold drink (preferably pool side). The sports of choice to engage in, either watching or playing is baseball, or softball.
But I have a hint of something to look forward to – Rugby. The Ohio State University Women’s Rugby team is ready too for the 2016 season.
Before we can understand what is to come – let us glance over what transpired this past spring.
The spring season had been dedicated to the 7-A-side version of the game; which is a perfect opportunity to sharpen individual skills and improve a fitness level.
This is a time of the year where no conference, which includes the Big Ten, does not organize a full schedule. Each team must then go hunting for tournaments! The great benefit to this is that it assigns opportunities in competition to any level that a coaching staff is seeking to better their squad.
The Buckeyes Women’s Rugby Team and Head Coach Joel Bonnaud decided that the best for the players’ development was to focus on becoming the best – and we all know to become the best, you must play the best – Ohio State went to the highest level tournaments possible this past spring.
The first one was hosted by Lindenwood (St Charles, MO – #2 team in the country), and it allowed the Buckeyes to set the mark for the rest of the season in terms of workload required to reach top level.
A month later was the Atlanta Invitational. Hosted by USA Rugby – this is a quite unique event. Ohio State was able to play against the best teams across the country; they, too, had the opportunity to watch live the International Series, featuring the best Women rugby athletes from around the world.
The Buckeyes also hosted its own tournament. This one had local flavor as teams were coming from Cleveland area and outskirts of *ichigan.
All of those steps served for one purpose: getting ready for the College Rugby Championship in Philadelphia, first weekend of June. In the spread of over 3 days, players had to learn to handle all the downtime between pressure games, which certainly cannot be an easy task! However, despite few ups and downs (Loss to Lindenwood, Win vs Arizona and Kutztown, then a loss to Penn State), the Buckeyes landed in 7th position after winning a very close game vs Princeton.
This Fall season, if the Spring is an indication, shows that the Buckeyes Women’s Rugby Team is ready and quite capable to make a run for tremendous improvement from last year. These ladies are hard workers that love the game of Rugby. It shows too. The feisty spirit embedded by Coach Bonnaud into the Program is beginning to take hold. This coming season look for the names of Cyndi Campbell, McKenna Cimperman, Tori Fantozzi, Brittany Morrison, Darby High and Anna Smoot (who has a wonderful outlook towards the great sport of Rugby) to be mentioned often and positively.
We shall be back before September to break down this team and get the fire brewing in all of us for the promising year to come.
The post Let’s Talk Ohio State Women’s Rugby in 2016 appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
Continue reading...