The season is starting to accelerate for Charlotte, the leader in the DII Carolinas North pool. The team that represented the South at 2016 nationals entered this competitive season with a desire to return to the eastern regional championship and salve the shortcomings of the 2017 season.
“The girls were severely disappointed in the lack of success last year and set the target really high this year. The expectation is to meet or exceed 2016,” said Charlotte coach Brad Richard, whose squad went 1-1 at eastern regionals two years ago. “We have the same talent and skill set and a lot of the same players, and they felt they fell short last year – not in performance capabilities, but it was a matter of not hitting the target. They’re super eager.”
Charlotte had advanced to the 2017 South championship but fell three points short of eventual champion Fort Miami in the semifinals. When the team regrouped in fall 2017, the squad was smaller than usual but had influential veterans like Jen Moser, Nicole Benjamin, Kelly Sager, Amanda Watkins, Liz Ravaoili and Kala Clanton to lead the way.
“Numbers are lower this year, we’re sitting around 26-28 players, but the ones that we did get are great,” Richard considered the newcomers. “They either have fantastic collegiate experience or they have lengthy sporting backgrounds. Over the last six months, they’ve stepped into the pattern, and there’s minimal drop-off from the seasoned vets to the newer players.”
Erin Satterfield, for example, integrated quickly. She came from UNC softball and in her first outing – a 140-0 win over Southern Pines – scored five tries. The fall also included wins over Eno River and Asheville, as well as a friendly victory over Nashville.
The Carolinas is divided into two four-team pools, and poolmates play home-and-away series over the fall and spring. That leaves a lot of idle time in between matrix matches, but Charlotte pumped up its involvement to keep the team growing.
Last weekend, for example, seven players helped the USA Rugby South Panthers to a Savannah St. Patrick’s Day tournament title, while the rest of the squad played a round robin against Raleigh, D.C. Furies and Kent State. The week before that, the Carolinas All-Stars debuted in Las Vegas and took a handful of Charlotte players. This weekend, Charlotte will play Knoxville before resuming matrix play.
“With the Carolinas All-Stars, for the 7s, we did a three-session development series in January and February, free and open to all Carolinas girls,” said Richard, who is the Carolinas women’s high performance director. “We went through the development of basic skills – catch-pass, evasion, decision-making – for three hours apiece. We then took the girls who progressed the most to Vegas. The five from Charlotte, after playing faster teams in Vegas, immediately benefitted in tactical awareness and speed of decision-making. The Charlotte girls who went had fun so it was for them to see the benefit but we definitely saw it when we played Raleigh and D.C. They weren’t overwhelmed by the competition and were keeping up with the game.”
Richard wants to continue the development series, especially since the geographic union has been helping financially. There has been talk of a summer 7s club that could potentially challenge for nationals, but those details are TBD.
Looking ahead, the D.C. Ruggerfest is the next big fixture on the calendar. Charlotte is attending for the first time and will compete in the Premier division.
“That is going to be a really challenging weekend because Life, Penn State, Raleigh, maybe Beantown, they’re all going to be there,” Richard said. “That will definitely be our toughest weekend of the year. It’s three weekends before the South conference playoffs, so we hope we can push hard, see where we stand and be over-prepared for the playoffs.”
The Carolinas crossovers occur April 21, and then Southern Pines will host the South final four on May 5-6. Two Carolinas teams will accompany the Florida and True South champions for a berth to the DII club eastern regional championship. The South will join the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Atlantic North at easterns, and the victor will advance to the national final against the western regional champ.