Photos: Allegheny U24s, courtesy of Kiyomi Knox
The Allegheny Rugby Union (ARU) women’s club and collegiate divisions are receiving a boost this year, adding both new teams and existing ones into its membership. This evolution is a signal to Angela Smarto, who serves as ARU secretary among other coaching posts, that the union is moving in the right direction.
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The collegiate division has seen the most movement. Allegheny has fielded a D2/NSCRO hybrid system the previous two seasons, where games within a team’s division counted toward the post-season, and those outside a team’s division were considered friendlies.
“Teams like it, but it does favor the needs of the NSCRO squads over our D2 schools,” Smarto considered the three D2 teams.
“Not only is that some high-pressure games, but also it’s pretty boring to play all the same teams over and over again,” the Roger Morris coach added. “So we had some brainstorming, and we realized that we wanted and needed more teams in our competition.”
Allegheny approached teams in the DI Mason Dixon’s North, offering more local competition, a fall schedule that culminated with the fall championship, and access to the U24 all-star program. Temple University realigned with D2 Mid-Atlantic Rugby Conference, Pittsburgh declined the offer, and Kent State accepted. The Golden Flashes will retain its DI status and have to apply for an at-large bid to the DI fall championship.
“Youngstown State just kind of fell into our lap,” Smarto commented on the second collegiate addition. “Youngstown State athletic department decided to start a funded women’s rugby program. They would qualify as D2, but also as a first-year team we know that playing more experienced teams all the time can be discouraging. So what we’ve done is give them a developmental schedule of four matches against NSCRO clubs.”
Coach Jeff Horton has plans to build the program, recruit heavily and potentially offer scholarship opportunities in the future. Ideally, Youngstown State would join the fall 2018 league as a D2 team, with the option of moving up to DI if all goes well.
“So we now manage NSCRO, D2 and D1 teams, and I personally believe this is a huge advantage to the clarity of our organization,” Smarto summarized. “We’ve had some teams interested in possibly moving up a level and [now] it’s so easy because we manage it all. In so many other places, all of the collegiate leagues got so fractured in the last five years, it’s confusing to keep up with. Instead of creating tiny fiefdoms we want our teams to have a local community regardless of their division of play.”
Smarto tipped her hat to Allegheny Collegiate Coordinator Kiyomi Knox, who not only ushered these new teams into the league but who will also serve as a resource for teams looking at different competitive opportunities.
In other sign that Allegheny is moving in the right direction, the U24 all-star team picked up momentum. Coached by Rebecca Trapp, 17 players traveled to Chicago for the U24 LAU all-star tournament, four were invited to the Midwest selection camp, and one player, Chloe Wickstrom, was selected to the upcoming Thunderbirds tour to Ireland.
“We certainly plan on returning to the LAU every year for our big event, but we want to expand opportunities for more higher-level rugby,” Smarto referenced home-and-away matches for the program. “We want to keep supporting our local coaching staffs so they can give them the skill sets they’ll need to elevate their play.”
Allegheny is also working toward a senior select side in the coming year, a demand that became evident after the U24 program started and older players lamented the lack of opportunity for their age group.
“We want to establish a fluid program of two teams that support one another and with possibilities of traveling together,” Smarto explained. “We think it may also help our collegiate players transition from college to senior rugby if they’re already familiar with different players on different teams, and also the level of play that is expected. This will also give more coaches opportunities to be a part of the program, learn more, and bring it back to their home teams. We all want to get better and we aren’t going to be able to do that if we aren’t helping each other out.”
Once the senior all-star program launches, it will have a larger player pool from which to choose. North Buffalo (N.Y.) and Youngstown Steel Valley (Ohio) have aligned with Allegheny and will compete in the D2 Midwest.
“Needless to say we’ve been very busy, and I think we’re just about to hit our stride as an organization and start something meaningful to the growth and sustainable development of women’s rugby in our region,” Smarto concluded.
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