Rugby Spotlight

The Women’s+ Rugby Fall season is now in full swing with a team of experienced players and several new recruits. Team captains, juniors Jaylyn Elioza and Angel Nguyen, led the team through their first home tournament on Sept. 27. 

The tournament was held on a sunny afternoon at Susen’s Field in Superior, Wis. Macalester College faced CSS first, and won 15-5. Carleton College played against CSS next and won 17-5.

While this was the team's first home game of the season, some players got an early start by subbing with the UMD team, who started their season earlier in September.

“That was really cool because we got to know more of the UMD team and we got to play some of the teams that we’re playing this weekend, so it was cool to see how they play and what strengths and weaknesses they have,” said Elioza. 

The team analyzes factors such as speed and strength when deciding what their strategy will be ahead of games. 

Rugby is a unique sport. Elioza described it as a mixture of football, soccer, lacrosse, hockey, basketball, and even cheerleading.

“Whenever people join I’ll ask them if they’ve ever played a sport and I’ll try to relate it back to rugby and be like, see, you already know how to do this,” she said. 

While there is certainly lots to learn when it comes to rugby, the Women’s+ team is excited about getting new people involved in the sport. Elioza joined the team in the fall of her freshman year because she wanted to try something new. 

“It’s definitely a good emotional outlet. I’ll be super stressed throughout the day and then I’ll go to rugby and I’ll forget about everything for two hours. It’s really nice, and the team that we’ve had throughout the years has always been so supportive. So I went one time and then I just kept coming back,” said Elioza.

Inclusivity is important to the team, which is why they recently adopted a new title.

“We picked up Women’s+ this year over the summer because we saw other teams doing that. One of the things we promote is that every body is a rugby body and that’s kind of a worldwide rugby thing. It doesn’t really matter how you identify. We have a lot of gender nonconforming players and people who use any pronouns and just a bunch of our players are queer, actually, so it makes that welcoming, inclusive environment a lot easier to create,” said Elioza.

The CSS rugby club also has a men’s team. The teams have practices together and the club board is made up of players from both teams, which means that they also share the same set of rugby rules. 

“Everything’s the same, and everyone has this equal floor that we all stand on and that’s one of my favorite things ever because no one has more power than the other,” said Elioza.

Both teams will continue to play through October and will return for the spring rugby season.