Brookfield and Oak Creek en route to Davenport •
Brookfield finished third in Wisconsin for the third year in a row last fall, but the gap between perennial state finalists Catholic Memorial and Divine Savior Holy Angels (DSHA) was still significant. Brookfield head coach Neil Grintjes and assistant coach Rick Bellis knew that playing top teams from around the Midwest would breed confidence and improvement, and they weren’t alone in that assessment. Fellow Wisconsin teams like Oak Creek and Pulaski wanted to diversify their opposition, too, and they were met by equally eager programs in Minnesota, Illinois and Indiana.
The Border Battle was a good first step. Wisconsin’s Brookfield and Pulaski, and Illinois’ Plainfield played three of Minnesota’s top three teams last spring. North Suburban and Hopkins beat Brookfield soundly on day one, but on day two, the Bruisers held state champion Armstrong to a 5-5 halftime tie before giving up three second-half scores.
“That’s when things started to turn around for us,” Bellis reflected on the morale boost.
At Midwests, Brookfield played eventual single-school national champion St. Joseph to a 12-0 first half (before losing 29-0), Indiana state champion Penn to a 5-5 halftime (20-5 the final), and then beat Illinois state champion Plainfield for 7th. The Bruisers gained confidence in their competitive first-half performances against some of the best teams in the Midwest, and now just needed endurance.
In June, Wisconsin U19 coach Jeff Noe took approximately 50 players to Charlotte, S.C., for the Regional Cup Tournament, and the junior varsity and varsity sides won their respective titles. The majority of those players have returned to the league. Brookfield sent 12 players to the South, and then six were invited to Garrett Fisher’s Midwest U19 tryouts.
“All that high-level rugby and coaching can’t help but make the players better,” Bellis said.
“In general the league has more talent and that has a lot to do with the all-star team,” he added. “Only four of the 50 players who went to Charlotte were from DSHA and Catholic Memorial, so all of those kids from other teams are benefitting from some really good coaches – Noe, Fond du Lac’s Amanda Pohle, Catholic Memorial’s Alex Glorioso. … Throw in the 7s stuff we’re doing – trips to Las Vegas and summer 7s – and that’s added depth to the league.”
Last weekend, Brookfield and Oak Creek traveled to Davenport University to play Indiana’s top teams, Penn and Warsaw, in friendlies. Last year, the same four teams participated in the recruitment-like event, and both Indiana teams won by comfortable 30-point margins. This year, both Wisconsin teams won.
Bellis weighted Brookfield’s 20-15 win over Warsaw (Oak Creek won 24-12) against the true friendly nature of the match, which had open subs and lots of rookies. The Indiana coaches – Penn’s Adrian Sharkey and Warsaw’s Trevor Cracknell – have similar goals in diversifying their schedules and, according to Bellis, showed interest in joining 2017’s Border Battle with the Minnesota teams.
“One of the things that we improved is our defense,” Bellis reflected on the weekend. “We always tell the girls: It’s hard to lose if the other team doesn’t score. When you’re playing DSHA or Catholic Memorial, they are extremely good at holding onto possession, and by the sixth or seventh phase, they find the overlap. We are a lot better this year and the Warsaw game proved it.”
Brookfield is about to cap a busy 12 days, a period that began with a 39-12 league-opening win against Kettle Morraine, followed by the trip to Davenport, and will end with Saturday’s match against Divine Savior Holy Angels. The Dashers are favored, but Bellis is expecting a better performance than last year. It’s all part of a process, one that will support better play throughout the region and trickle upward into the collegiate ranks.
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