Women’s rugby starts strong
The Women’s Rugby club team took third in the Jackalope Tournament in Laramie, Wyo., last weekend. Bryn McMillan and Whitney Warr had three trys each to lead the Aggies.
“All in all, I think we did well,” said team captain Brooke Lambert. ” A lot of our girls were new, so we went to get experience. We needed to get ready for UVSC.”
“For the amount of new players we had, I thought it was a very good placement,” Aggie Nic Gyllenskog said.
After beating Colorado 26-0 Saturday, the Aggies lost to Select Side, an under-19 all-star team, 14-0. But USU rebounded by beating Nebraska Sunday, 42-5, to take third place.
The Aggies added about 10 new players this year, while keeping 15 players from last year, Lambert said.
“It will be a stronger and faster team,” Gyllenskog said. “We’re bigger than we were last year. We have a lot of good returning players.”
“There are more returning players than we normally have,” Lambert said.
USU will play against UVSC Saturday at 11 a.m. on the HPER field. Lambert said the Aggies must beat UVSC to make it to the Pacific Coast playoffs.
“We beat UVSC last year so we are optimistic,” Lambert said.
The Aggies are also looking forward to their second home game in October against BYU.
“That one doesn’t count toward our record, because they don’t play on Sunday,” Gyllenskog said. “But that’s our biggest rival so that will be fun.”
USU is looking to improve on its fifth place national finish last year.
“We have a very strong team this year,” Lambert said. “We’d like to make it to the national championship this year, but we want to focus right now on UVSC.”
“We definitely have the capabilities to finish higher than fifth,” Gyllenskog said.
Lambert said that events like the Jackalope Tournament will offer tougher competition than single games.
While the Aggies have many good players, Lambert said, they like to focus on standout players.
“We like to play well as a team. We have a lot of good players and we play well together,” Lamber said.
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu