An Unfortunate End to My Spring Season

Nope I'm not even injured. It's worse, I'm 100% healthy (and probably fitter then I've been in years) but I can't get insurance. Yup, I'm a douchebag supreme and if I'd been on my shit from the start I'd have a job, some savings, and insurance by now. *sigh* instead I missed my dream debut, I was selected to start at hook against Sacramento today but I had to back out because I found out that I need to be injury free for 6 months before another carrier will pick me up. I thought my stuff was going to go through but it ends up it was rejected weeks ago and my fam forgot to tell me (err 'cause I'm *cough* NOT playing rugby right now). While I could have done the gutsy thing and gone for it I decided to make the extremely painful but correct decision. *sigh* so now I can't even PRACTICE with the Blues because of liability reasons. Fucking shit dude...if only I'd left college with a better plan of action...fuck! I'll still go to practice but I guess I'll just bring along a workout and kick my own ass. Live and learn, I've been a lot more productive on the job hunt lately and now it's official. I'm declaring war on unemployment and my own irresponsible immaturity! I will be victorious!!! Wow that was geeky. Now that that's over let's get to the real rugby news shall we?

There is seriously a ton of material to cover...when it comes to DII collegiate stuff I'm totally backlogged.

March 7 League Match Results
Cal 27 v Reno 5
UCD 97 v Humboldt 0 (waiting final score)
Sac St 19 v UCSC 7


STANDINGS:
D1
Stanford 20
Cal 20
Chico 15
UC Davis 10
Reno 5
Humboldt 0

D2
Sac St 14
Santa Cruz 10
Santa Clara 4
St. Mary's 1
USF 0

Yup UCSC finally lost to Sac State, it was a fairly close match (we had them matched for speed and power...but experience won the day) 7 - 19 but yea, sucks but there are interesting implications. UCSC has been dodging the bullet of moving up to D1 for a while and this year it's mandatory DII winner of league HAS to move up if the bottom D1 team doesn't challenge. Humboldt has been trying for ages to get down to DII...ipso fact next year Sac State a team of a wee bit over 19 with 5+ fifth years, and a sixth year player (all starters mind you) will find themselves in the D1 racket next year. If this had happened last year I feel the current team could fend pretty well in D1, I know they could definitely take out Reno, and definitely pose a stern challenge to Chico and UC Davis. But next year? We'll see how their recruiting goes.

So what's next for UCSC? They're fundraising their butts off the good ol' fashioned Santa Cruz way (ie panhandling). They're flying up to Bellingham, WA to challenge Western Washington for a seed at Pac Coast playoffs. Should be an interesting match, if memory serves Western Wash had some pretty sharp backs that we managed to keep contained only by completely choking them of possession (although I suppose I could do some research on the subject and check my own archives but meh...another day).

PN1= Washington State University
PN2= Western Washington University
NC1= Sac State
NC2= UCSC
Utah= they haven't shown up to Pac Coast playoffs since I was a freshman in like 04-05...uh if they brought anyone I suppose it'd be Utah State
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PCRFU Playoffs
Host: NCRFU (natural rotation - NC '09, U '10, PN '11)
Dates: April 3/4, 2009 (Fri/Sat)
Venue: Stanford
MC: Theresa Champagne

Friday Matches if PN2 wins play-in:
2pm: Match A: NC1 v PN2
4pm: Match B: U1 v PN1

Friday Matches if NC2 wins play-in:
2pm: Match A: NC1 v U1
4pm: Match B: NC2 v PN1

Saturday Matches:
2pm: Match C: Loser A v Loser B
4pm: Match D: Winner A v Winner B

Winner D = PC 1
Loser D = PC 2
Winner C = PC 3
Loser C = PC 4

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In Women's Club side news, a week after successfully winning the Champagne Classic the ABs stretched themselves again playing a double header um...today. The ABs faced off first against the SF Fog and then a later match against the Sacramento Amazons + a few whores. The low numbers led to a bit of early fatigue and drop in play but the Blues eventually cycled through the gears and hit top speed nailing in try after try out wide using Nathalie Marchino's seemingly endless speed and energy. The Blues won it quite a freaking lot to 5, with the Fog scoring a try near the end of the first half.

The second game was a bit like the first, with the Blues struggling a bit to cope with the physicality of the teams tight play (and spending a relatively large amount of time camped on their own tryline) before adapting to the conditions and creating cleanly sealed platforms for their backs to score off of. Petrie Quigley showed some nice tough defense on her own tryline squashing a number of dangerous Amazon forwards in their tracks and eventually poaching the ball to allow Berkeley to get ship the ball downfield and get some breathing space. Due credit should be given to the pack who gutted through both matches and had some good steals at lineout time. Oh and the ABs beat the Sacramento Amazons quite a lot to 0.

Alright so I should have been keeping score (and I know my match analysis was pretty poor) but I was busy running the kicking tee every couple minutes and I kind of just lost track. Even though the whole insurance thing was a bummer I had a really fun time being a rookie again. It's fun to be helpful and I ended up getting to line the fields which was pretty cool if not a little messy (and I may be in trouble because some of the jerseys got paint on them because apparently the paint have enough time to set...gah) and bringing the kicking tee was a new experience. Heh now I know that Steph Bruce likes to kick from a cone whereas Ruth Bryson prefers a real tee. Oh and I talked to Ellen Owens (or more accurately stuttered and stumbled all over my words) about learning coding game tape which is something I know very little about but am VERY INTERESTED in learning!! Weee! I'm stoked! I know I never managed to go to the UC Berkeley practices but it's mostly because I think they're at the same time as the ABs practices. Kal McMahon might move back to Berkeley and play with the ABs which would totally be fun. Oh and I can't believe that the ABs don't have cut tampons in their med kit...I'm going to have to cut some up for them. We had like three nosebleeds today and seriously, rolled gauze just doesn't cut it!

Alright so what's next?? Berkeley U-19 vs Alameda High School kick's off tomorrow at 11 at Thompson Field in Alameda. The lineouts were looking sharp last practice, and the girls were hitting the ball with more pace. Hopefully they'll do fine against Alameda.