Women’s club rugby loses Catfight Saturday
The Utah State University women’s rugby team came out fighting, but because of injuries were not able to win their own tournament, the Catfiight, held on the HPER field Saturday afternoon.
In the first game of the tournament, the Aggies came out strong against Weber State University winning 10-3. They also won the second game against Idaho State University.
But in both games the Aggies lost key players to injuries, beginning in the first game with Jamie Purcell who left the game after getting hit in the knee. Against ISU, the Aggies lost Jamia Gill because of a broken nose.
“We had a lot of injuries from the ISU game. It was a mess,” captain Lauren Dreitzler said. “A lot key of players got hurt.”
The Aggies were also missing star player Becca Ogden, who was playing with the professional rugby team Grizzly Shield in Canada, and veteran Lindsey Lovell, who was vacationing.
With four veterans missing, the Aggies had to borrow players from other teams to play in the semi-final match against BYU.
Despite the borrowed players, BYU was too much for the Aggies, who had been looking forward to playing the Cougars in their own tournament.
“Weber was kind of our warm-up,” Purcell said. “BYU is the team this season.”
The Aggies also lost their final game to the University of Utah.
The U of U ended up winning the whole tournament when they defeated BYU in the championship.
Although they only won two of the four games in their own tournament, the Aggies feel good about how they played, Dreitzler said. The team is young and the girls are still learning, she said.
There were some great plays from the girls, Dreitzler said, and two players on the team scored the first try of their careers, including second-year player Rachael Ritchie who picked up the ball and dove in, after teammate Chelsea Bluth was stopped just short of the goal.
“It’s about dang time,” Ritchie said. “I needed to score.”
Communication is the key for the Aggies young team, Dreitzler said.
With all the players getting experience this year, she said the Aggies should be a pretty strong team in the future.