Wooohoo New Ranking For DII Collegiate Women's Rugby on Goff!

Damn...ykno I'm really sick of saying that mouthful...I mean shit it's almost like GLBTQQIA. Division Two Collegiate Women's Rugby. DII CWRugby....I mean that's shorter at least...suppose it wouldn't work if their is a CW rugby team. Really the whole club side thing is really confusing to explain to new players...with women's senior side I always end up abbreviating it as SS which just sounds wrong. Anyhoo enough rambling.......

Goff ranked us #5 in the nation and acknowledged the fact that we're in our preseason...which is cool. I just don't know where he's getting our record as 2-2. We won three games at slug fest and lost one. We won four games at scrum by the sea and lost one. And we lost to stanford.....so that's either 7-3 or 2-3 (if you're grouping our wins as single units) actually I just have no clue how it adds up. Either way I'm just really glad we're up there again, it just makes my heart light up a bit....I was getting a little worried because he hadn't updated in a while.

Anyhoo

I'm FREAKING OUT! I have four odd essays plus two stories plus making myself available to my students and finals. Oh my god I have no idea how I'm going to do this I have no time for rugby and holy freaking A I don't know how howhowhwowhowhwowowowhowwhow I'm going to do this. Really. I'm not going to fail out of college my Senior year. That's just DUMB. Ykno I'll worry about jobs later. I'll worry about life LATER. This year is about surviving...I'm no smart driven person...so yea screw ambition I just want to graduate. I have a WEEK one WEEK I don't write one paper in a week! AHHH.

UCSC vs Stanford Picture Gallery

Just to add some pics illustrating points made in previous posts....


We were popping them a bit in their scrum.


...and pretty freaking solid in our own lineout.


When they had won a ruck they REALLY created seperation..



We weren't the only ones hovering...


Yea Alyson is a beast


Lastly the team is going to be playing Fortuna High School in a week, with an emphasis on our rookie team learning the game against a really strong high school program coached by one of our alumni and All American Tina (damn I'll look up her last name). I probably mentioned this before but meh...if I did I forgot.

Nice little tag on goff

Goff had a nice little update on our game with Stanford...my head feels better and I'm pretty beat and only moderately behind in my schoolwork instead of the standard OMFG panic mode. Hmm what else...I'm really not working on my life though. Kind of worried that I'm completely screwed out of school. I know a lot of type A club side ruggers who are uber professional women with kick-ass jobs and education...I'm just wondering where I will fit into that. If I don't get a good job out of college I won't have the funds to go on trips or even pay dues. What if I don't get decent healthcare from my employment...will I be able to risk injury day after day. What if I do get injured...how will I continue working? I mean...I'll have to continue working but what about concussions and their debilitating effects...ehhhhh. I need a good job and I think I have to move somewhere cheap with jobs....like Durham NC...or Oakland...or Long Beach...I mean there is no way I could afford to live in Santa Cruz...I'm currently paying 650 bucks a month for a hole in the wall! I don't know what I'm ranting about...I just don't know what I'm doing or where I'm going.

LOST!

Maybe I'll go into radio...

Concussion!!!

I made it two tournaments without injury and whabbam...hello concussion. I was looking forward to resting this weekend SO much. Ahhhhhhhhhh. Well on the plus side we just played Stanford's B+ side and showed some bright spots but not a whole lot of team synergy. Eh...we were breaking in two completely new players and still had tons of rookies. We actually led the majority of the first half and they tied it just at the whistle. They notched up a cluster of scores early on in the 2nd half but we fought back a bit. Fitness was as always an issue against a D1 team and we ended the match with a try. Final score Stanford 27-22 UCSC. Not too shabby with a lot of players playing out of position (WILL I EVER HOOK AGAIN!?!?!?!?)...we dominated scrums in the first half and did pretty well there all day, our lineout was ridiculously solid and I'm really excited for our outside center Alyson ....something or other...I'm concussed what can I say. While Stanford was fielding mostlly b-side they did have some of their top players out there like their really amazing hooker who I'm too concussed to remember and Jossy Tseng (probably mispelled I'll edit this when the world stops spinning) and maybe somebody else. As always Stanford showed smart rugby, we managed to disrupt their precision and the were definitely weak in rucks (in the sense that they were always either poaching or setting up a picture perfect ruck and not necessarily driving...they were definitely winning rucks with speed and not power). They beat us around the outside a lot but that's to be expected...I made a nice break, assisted in a few tries, and nearly caught a few of their wingers. Saw Tina Neesburg there which was cool and talked to her a bit, come to think of it I probably sounded like a douche because I can' really think straight. Hence why I 'm stuck on campus with an inability to get home or really think of a better plan then waiting for my gf to get back from a field trip and take me home...we need to take care of our injured players better....any ideas on keeping injured teammates involved? Uhhh oh so is it official now that refs are playing longer advantage laws even if it isn't beneficial to the team with the supposed advantage? Just curious, I find it really weird cause the other team will commit an offense and retain the ball for two or three more phases before we'll go back to the penalty. This is the fourth or fifth reff that's done this, both in norcal and socal. I understand it's meant to free up the game but it's frustrating having to put in a number of tackles and rucks just to bring the ball back across half the field to where the penalty was originally ....originally...I can't think right now. Anyhoo hope everyone had a good saturday.

I have to post this POS just because it was such a pain to make

UGH

I was going to color the pins by TAU but I'll have to wait until after my six page paper, 5 page draft, midterm from hell, and two radio stories are turned in. AGHHH

Do mention if these are inaccurate...it was pretty hard to tell..

Scrum By the Sea 07

Wow these tournaments have really acted as pillars in the last four years of my life. It's crazy that this is my last year. Pass or fail out of college, either way it's on to real life. Saying that its a heavy feeling is an understatement.

Our backs captain just found out that she has a 200pg report to write for her internship on sustainable logging practices in Northern California....all I have to do is...well...not that much. So I just can't fall through the cracks...what would Prof. Thomas think of me...


Right well back to old age and rugby. I can't really tell you much about the tournament because we were in the social division and I was too lazy to try and find all the scores...or rather I was too busy juggling the 14 odd rookies we took down there (out of 19). Yea...it was definitely a weird experience being the only person in the 12 person van who remembered the old breed. We played surprisingly decent considering we had 1 years leading the team. I don't have a snot of leadership in me, a major weakness I know. But yea...the first day started with UGLY victories against Univ. of Arizona, Oxy, and UCLA B. None of our backs hit anything at full speed and had trouble realigning, our forwards had a lot to learn. I made two breakaways by running the right line...which was just weird being a hooker with 35-40m runs...wish I had the gas to finish them...*sigh* sprinting workouts for me. Got a little peeved the first day, but it was a necessary evil, we needed to train hookers so I was propping 4/5 of the games. On the second day we played U of A again and clicked more, and it was a lot cleaner. We scored about two tries in every match barring the last one against UCLA's A-side. PS while I always love this tournament I think it was kinda nuts to have the social division square off against the highest scoring teams in the serious division..just because almost every one of those games ended with an ambulance. Not that it couldn't have happened anyways but there is a huge difference going from playing fellow DII teams to UCLA's A-side which I'm not sure but supposedly was giving chico a hard time. Either way we held them to 3 points till the half when we made a few subs and our defensive line (which is all we were really doing) finally collapsed and they scored 3-4 tries on us. Eh. Overall a fun tournament and I'm kind of glad we won't be traveling that far again for a long while

le *gasp*

So I spend my Wednesdays in the Lionel Cantu GLBTQI (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex) center because its right next the the radio station and its just a comfy place to hang out and study. The staff there has always supported our team and thanks to the center, UCSC recently was ranked one of the top ten GLBT friendly colleges in the nation. Pretty cool eh? Well I just flipped through the Advocate college guide and under the category of the best place to check out ladies:....duh duh duh...is the Women's rugby team!! Seriously! That's frickin' great!

hehee

Ok in other news Chico went up four spots in Goff's D1 ranking solely because of their performance at slug fest...which is pretty funny that our goofy little tourney is getting press.

What else...hopefully we're going to scrum by the sea...I don't see why we wouldn't...it's pretty much the coolest west coast tournament ever.

Slug Fest '07

Woo! I can't move my neck! I'm missing a ligament in my right forearm! I have a dead leg that just won't go away! And my middle finger is jammed! Slug Fest went pretty cool, our rookies learned a lot. I can only really speak about our scrums and we were teaching A LOT of new props and locks and hell they did really well. I can't tell you scores because I was front row the entire time and lord knows we have no memory. We won 3 out of the 4 games...beat SLO, UCLA, and Sac State and Humboldt beat us so fun games all around. The tournament was kind of a weird bracket hybrid (I think someone was watching too many world cup matches). Chico and...I want to Humboldt came out on top. It was bloody hot for Santa Cruz with the weather at 80 degrees. We had lots of teams come out: Sac State, Humboldt, Reno, Chico, Davis, SLO, UCLA, and us...pretty damn cool turnout.


Lots of interesting comments were being slung around on goff and now the comments section on articles have vanished...odd.

What else...lots of hostility towards Flores...I think she's running a damn tight ship with the national team and I trust her...but who really cares what a DII collegiate hooker thinks anyhoo.

I really need to get on track with school. The quarter is halfway over...I need to get on this shit.

more on slugfest + pictures later.

oh and a TON of our kids have rolled ankles...what the hell our pitch isn't that bad.

I'm really disturbed right now...

So I was checking out the links that people take to get to my site and yea...someone found my site when they were searching for...and I quote "welsh gang bangs". Yea. So I'm like no freakin' way and so I searched google. Lo and behold my blog is the FIRST thing that comes up for "welsh gang bangs". Really...really people? Anyways...now that I've established my dominance on the subject of "welsh gang bangs" I guess I'll return to rugby blogging.

Which is to say that field crew kind of sucks....and I can't believe two facts.

1) the IRB provides 0 funding for women's rugby (or at least US women's rugby)

2) that it's going to cost the individual woman eagle 1500 frickin bucks to go on tour. Then I realize that I paid half of that just to compete in Elite 8s at the collegiate DII level. Eh....well it was worth it and I'd imagine it'd be a million times more rewarding to do it for my country. Thing is...I couldn't imagine how much money one would have to make to be able to take out expenses like that...geez talk about a lot to handle.

Ok anyhoo
another short clip from last years PCRFU playoffs.

Wendy & Blondie make a good point

Yup, promotion of women's rugby so I'll be deleting stupid rash comments shortly. Hopefully no offense was taken..its more of a frustration over the administration then at the individual team. But the situation was just stated more succinctly with a two word phrase. So full apologies for that one.



Lastly, Slugfest is set for t-minus two days and I'm pretty frickin excited. We have more D1 teams then expected...and I'm in charge of field crew. So posts, security rope, flags and pads...at least we don't have to spray paint the lines by hand again (yes you heard that right...from HAND, if anyone is wondering why the lines weren't straight last year). So far we have UCLA, Sac State, Humboldt, SLO, and others confirmed and chico should show. Can't wait to see our rookies in action. We should actually have some lock-sized locks this year...'magine that.

Final final note....I totally forgot that DII women's s/s (senior side) wasn't sponsored by USA rugby.


little clip of a PCRFU playoff match Western Oregon losing a lineout to Sac State