Excuse me?!

I know that some other blogs have covered this already but it annoyed me enough to post about it too. College Rugby America is a website that claims to be "the official site of Women's College Rugby." On the righthand side of the page is an announcement saying that "the nation's first college women's rugby game will be played this fall." Drop the act. Yes, you can go on and on about the linguistic technicalities of "varsity rugby," "college rugby," "college club rugby," and all the other possible combinations but in the end it's all a bunch of BS. I play college rugby. When I step on the field my jersey says Cal on it. We, the other teams in our league, and the teams across the nation who compete to be at nationals all play college rugby. Don't you dare take away from the commitment we have for this sport. Someday, I hope, there will be NCAA women's rugby but that day isn't here yet, so for now we are college rugby. Plus, I'm a little confused. Are you the home of women's college rugby or the EIU women's rugby page under a different name? I'm sure EIU has some great athletes but they don't have the only ruggers who exemplify "courage, character, accountability, integrity and sportsmanship" while maintaining a 3.0 or above GPA. And you can applaud your so-called record breaking winning season all you want but until you play against the best (Penn State, Stanford, Army, Chico, etc.) your program cannot claim to be the best.

More could be said but not anything fit for a PG movie. Plus, I think my coach checks in on me every once in awhile. *waves* Oh and on that note, I was recently informed that my blog came up in a conversation during Grizzlies a weekend ago. *waves again* I'm still surprised people read this but thanks.

Interesting Links

Alex Williams, assistant coach to the All Blues and former Eagle, is starting a women's rugby camp this summer.
www.williamsrugbycamps.com
It's a three day affair and some elite players are going to be coaching. Looks like a great opportunity for anyone trying to up their game.

Article from SF Chronicle titled Stanford women ready to rumble says "Cal's women's team is nothing special." Yes, I know we don't have the million titles that the men's team does but still, that's a bit harsh.

Final Fours 2007

Final Fours were this past Friday and Saturday. Friday had the semifinals for the DI men and women. The first game was Stanford vs. Davis and unsurprisingly Stanford won easily. Stanford just played their game and Davis simply wasn't able to do much about it. Then it was Penn State vs. New Mexico. New Mexico had heart and put up a fight but Penn State stayed focused and the exploited any mistake that New Mexico made. After the women's semifinals were the men's games with Cal vs. Navy and BYU vs. Penn State. Cal and BYU both won. Cal made it clear fairly early on that they were going to win. BYU did not. At the half it looked like it could go either way and it was a really messy game. Both sides were dropping the ball, knocking it on, and doing other random stuff. In the end though BYU pulled it out and so we ended with the same lineup for the DI championship games as last year.

Saturday were the championship games for DI and DII men and women. I wasn't able to see the DII games but I do know that Iowa won the women's game. Condolences to UCSC. Not that 2nd place in the nation is something to be ashamed of. After the DII games was the Stanford vs. Penn State game. The final score was 21-22 with Penn State barely winning. The score does not reflect the game very accurately. Penn State killed Stanford for most of the game and then at the very end they just fell off and let Stanford score again and again. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe the subs weren't able to play at the same level as the starters or maybe Penn State thought they had it in the bag and could relax. I'm not sure but they almost let Stanford take it away from them just like last year. The only thing that saved them was the clock. For the first 65 minutes of the game, Penn State was very impressive. Their forwards were disciplined and their whole team played amazing defense. There were some amazing tackles. Penn State layed out a Stanford flanker on multiple kickoffs right in front of us. Plus, Penn State's fullback is damn good. Their entire back three were fast but you could tell that she was the brains behind the operation. After the women's game, was the men's championship game which Cal took easily. The first score came only a minute and half into the game and they just kept coming. I expected more of a showing from BYU but Cal was able to keep them from doing much of anything the entire game. So Cal is the champion for what seems like the 100th time.

Just a small sidenote but how impressive is it that Penn State had both teams in the Final Fours? Wouldn't it be cool to win it the same year? I believe one school has done it before.