Photos: Kerry Sparks
The Girls’ High School National Invitational Tournament (NIT) has one final vacancy in its single-school divisions now that Moon Area High School has committed. The Pittsburgh area team won the Rugby Pennsylvania DII State Championship last year and was promoted into Division I for the spring 2018 season. The Tigers, like State College, will opt out of the state playoffs this year to participate in its first NIT.
Rocky Nurss has served as head coach since the program’s inception five years ago and has 16 years of rugby coaching behind him. After winning the 2017 DII state title, Moon Area knew DI was the next move, but geographically, that leap is tough. The team is closer to Cleveland and Buffalo than it is to Philadelphia-area DI teams, so Rugby PA approved a competitive friendly schedule that include a couple of DI teams, DII clubs and out-of-state teams. Originally, this setup was going to allow Moon Area to participate in the state post-season.
“We had just beat St. Joe’s at [Carolinas Ruggerfest] – which is sometimes a misleading result – but we realized that we could compete with them,” Nurss said of the turning point in terms of considering nationals. “The rest of our schedule has us playing Orchard Park, State College, City Honors – three teams that are all going to nationals, so why not us?”
Nurss reached out to the NIT Committee’s John Waliszewski, who confessed that Moon Area was already on the radar.
“It was a big decision, having to forgo the state championship to play in the single-school nationals,” Nurss referenced on the perpetual date conflict. “The big thing for us, being a team that has a really good relationship with its school, is that there’s value playing for any championship that is [for single schools]. Just talking to our athletic director, all our peer sports are playing other high schools, and we’re playing a lot of club teams.”
On Saturday, Moon Area welcomed City Honors to Pittsburgh for a friendly.
“They knew it was a preview of the level of competition we might see [at the NIT]. They were really excited for the game,” Nurss said of his players’ pre-game mentality. “[The score] is an unfair representation of City Honors, just because I know that they’re in Buffalo and I don’t think they’ve been outside yet. We had a tournament under our belt, and we started fast against them. The second half was pretty tight all in all. They played a structured, disciplined game and had a couple of talented forwards who gave us some trouble.”
Moon Area won Saturday’s game 75-7, and lead try-scorer Carly Weiss dotted down four times. She’s heading to Youngstown State for rugby this fall and will be joined by second row Steph Hytla. Fullback Holly Forkey, whose defensive prowess is stellar, scored two tries; and No. 8 Cassie Kotvas, a physical player who has good ball-handling and decision-making skills, scored three tries. Abigail Lerch and Cymone Richard also scored, and Bella Sinatra led all point-scorers with 25 on a try and 10 conversions.
“We’re growing really well right now,” Nurss surveyed the program. “What I would like to see happen is that rugby starts earlier. We started a youth program last year and we’re trying to grow a middle school program to feed into the high school. When you’re a national championship contender, or finish sixth in the nation – I really don’t know what we’ll be going up against – it gets the kids’ imaginations going.”
Orchard Park, which finished third in its first showing at single-school NITs last year, is circled in red on the calendar, and the Buffalo-area team will head to Moon Area in two weekends. Stay tuned.