43
Steel Valley Rugby Club teams open with mixed results
The Steel Valley
Rugby Club kicked off its year at WATTS with …
By BRIAN DZENIS
YOUNGSTOWN
Scrums, takedowns and occasionally people rolling out of piles of humanity clutching a limb. For a group of Akron and Mahoning Valley women, it’s good to be back at it.
“I love being on the field,” Steel Valley rugby player Jenna George said. “It’s where I want to be.”
On Saturday, the Steel Valley Rugby Club debuted its women’s side in the third annual Thomas “Chris” Smythe Memorial Rugby 10s Tournament held at the WATTS. Proceeds from the tournament went to the Smythe scholarship fund.
For a team that’s a little more than six weeks old, the SVRC women had an impressive showing, winning their first two matches before losing in the championship round of the preseason showcase to the Pittsburgh Angels, 40-0. The men’s team was eliminated from the tournament after dropping its first two games. The ladies downed a Cleveland team and a Toledo team en route to the title match.
“It hurts, but losing these kind of games, it’s good for you. If we won, we wouldn’t know what our weaknesses are,” team captain Renee Whittenberger said. “[Pittsburgh] poked a lot of holes in us and now we know what to do to get started and work on for the next two weeks.”
The team gearing to compete in Division II of the Midwest Rugby Union’s Tri-State League. Pittsburgh was a D-I side whose experience showed, not letting Steel Valley advance the ball past midfield for most of the game. The outlook for the upcoming season remains optimistic.
“Since we know we need to work on our organization, once we get that, it’s divide and conquer. We’ll be one with each other and moving hard,” Whittenberger said. “I’d put us at .500 for the season if I had to bet money. I’m feeling pretty good.”
The new team rose from the remnants of defunct women teams in Akron and Youngstown. Whittenberger said the Akron players haven’t played competitively since July and for the Youngstown players, the layoff was much longer.
“I’m really proud of the team. These girls have come together, they’ve played really hard,” Whittenberger said. “It didn’t have to go that way. I’ve seen teams that didn’t have good chemistry, but we had it right away, so I’m looking forward to the season.”
The guys were also punching above their weight on Saturday. They fell to a Pittsburgh side and a team from Fort Wayne, Ind., which advanced pretty deep in the tournament. The former made a national title appearance playing in 7s and the latter is a Division III powerhouse. The Steel Valley men play in D-IV.
“We showed a lot of heart,” Steel Valley coach Bill Burton said. “We hit hard. We played tough, but the experience really cost us.
“We’re replacing nine starters from the past two years. We’re in a rebuilding phase and we have 13 or 14 new guys and they’re all enthusiastic and big strong athletes, they just need to learn the game.”
SVRC made the D-IV playoffs last season but had to forfeit due a lack of available players that could travel to Detroit. Taking a couple early beatdowns against top-flight competition could pay dividends down the road.
“I’m looking forward to the new guys getting experience,” Burton said. “Once we start playing D-IV and start playing teams on our skill level, we should have a lot more success.”