See team roster below
Bitterroot Koa Wahine won its sixth Rugby Montana championship, going 3-0 in the final 7s tournament for the girls’ high school trophy. It was a remarkable season that began with nearly 20 individuals who had never played a rugby game and ended with a 19-10 state title win against Flathead’s Black & Blue.
RELATED: Bitterroot’s 2019 Title Run
Only three teams were able to compete in the girls’ high school division this spring: Bitterroot, Flathead’s Black & Blue (Kalispell) and Helena Renegades. Bitterroot head coach Dana Cather explained that his program traditionally has the strongest numbers, but this year was unique. When the squad assembled for spring training, only two players – Jessica Mosbrucker and Parker Brewer – had ever played rugby before. And their “experience” was limited to two weeks of practice before the spring 2020 was canceled for Covid-19. So in essence, Bitterroot was a team of rookies.
That did make the coaching strategy pretty simple – drill the fundamentals.
“For the first two weeks, they probably thought rugby was just a passing game, because that’s all we did,” Cather said.
“The majority of the girls have really good athleticism,” the coach continued. “But unless they grew up with softball, volleyball or basketball, where the eye-hand coordination has developed, the idea of ‘run at pace, catch the ball, maintain speed, and then pass,’ is very foreign to them. So that’s why we focused on passing and we didn’t move on until we had that down.”
There’s always a risk that a skills-heavy introduction to the sport might deter newcomers, but Cather has seen the strategy pay off on the pitch.
“I see this with other clubs,” he explained. “They have great players and talent but it’s like they want to expedite teaching them the game, so the other team is pick-and-go, and no passing it out. It’s players taking their turn to run with the ball. Don’t get me wrong – we reverted to 2nd grade soccer at times, until we were able to build that trust – but by the end of the season our team was able to spread the field, work our offense, and create an overload on the side. If they recognized it then they’d pass the ball down the line and race up the field.”
The season was a series of 7s round robin tournaments, and with 16-18 regular players, Bitterroot was able to field two squads per event. Three seniors led the way in maturity and leadership: Brewer, who unfortunately suffered a knee injury during the third week of competition; Shancee Herbert, who is one of four players heading to Texas to represent Rock Rugby at Bloodfest 7s; and Mosbrucker, who was a calming, lead-by-example type.
“She has crazy breakaway speed, too,” Cather said of Mosbrucker. “If we can get the ball to her, she needs a step-and-a-half to get to full speed and she’s gone. But she also needs to trust her speed. Sometimes she had room on the outside but was unsure if she could break past someone, so she did what she was taught to do and dove back into the field so support could catch up. But if she had turned on the jets, then she could get around defenders, and she did that quite a bit.”
Freshmen and sophomores comprised the rest of the team, and they all followed incredible growth trajectories that really impressed the head coach.
“Dawsyn Brewer really was the shot-caller and nucleus of the offense after her sister, Parker, went down with a knee injury,” Cather noted standouts. “Cambree Praast is an amazing freshman and has an amazing boot for a first-year player.”
Players found joy on defense as well, and Cather enjoyed watching a few players really attack the tackle and breakdown for poaching opportunities.
“A few of them seemed to live for that,” he said. “They just loved to jackal the ball and did a fantastic job.”
Three weeks before the state tournament, Idaho Falls traveled to Montana for 15s matches. Bitterroot, of course, has never played 15s before, but the players welcomed the challenge and a new opponent.
“None of the girls have played 15s at all and some of them really loved it,” Cather said. “The game’s longer, but it’s not typically as exhausting as a 7s game because you’re more spread out and have more people doing the work. There aren’t as many breakaways and so you’re not sprinting downfield as much. The forwards like catching the ball and crashing it with a pod. Even the backs and wings loved it, too, because they could exploit a bit more. … They were nervous because Idaho Falls has been playing 15s all season and they thought they were going to get handled, but they did a great job and we won.”
The state championship was set for May 22, and the team voted to enter one team in the final tournament. Bitterroot opened with a 33-5 win against Black & Blue and then followed with a 48-0 win against Helena. That set up a Bitterroot vs. Black & Blue title match.
“I’m not sure if we let our guard down, but [Black & Blue] got up and scored first, and that unraveled us some,” Cather said. “They reverted to panic play and started doing things they hadn’t done all season – like kicking. So at halftime, it was, ‘You need to settle down and play your game. You’re in panic mode and playing into their hands.’ It’s 7s so you have seven minutes to get that figured out. They did, we made some subs, and played better.”
Cather wasn’t necessarily surprised that the team stumbled in the first half, because trust-building is a long process and especially vulnerable on young, inexperienced squads. But he was pleased that they righted themselves in the second half and finished with a 19-10 win and trophy.
“In the second half, you’ll see one girl running through 5-6 players downfield, fending girls and scoring – that’s Reese Jessop,” Cather said of the freshman. “She’s a good athlete and once she figures out that conditioning, and working extra hard, and the preparation part pay off on the field, then she’ll be phenomenal. She loved 15s. We played her at lock because she’s our tallest player but size-wise she’s probably a prop. She loves contact and tackling, has a good pass and good hands, and O.K. speed. She’s only 14 so maybe speed will come.”
Jessop, Herbert, and sophomores Sierra Poulsen and Madison Lee are heading to Texas to train with Rock Rugby in advance of the Bloodfest 7s tournament this month. More players, from Bitterroot and the two other Montana clubs, will populate teams at the NAI 7s in Salt Lake City in July. Cather is looking for some more playing opportunities, perhaps in Washington or Idaho, as in-state options are limited.
“Numbers are dwindling,” Cather said of girls’ teams. “Some of that is because of Covid and some is because clubs aren’t actively trying to keep girls’ teams going. These youth clubs need more adult help. There are some individuals that have played rugby in these senior clubs for years, and they know players from all of these big towns. They need to step up and help the community start a youth program.”
The Bitterroot Valley pulls from six high schools but the total enrollment is much smaller than the Kalispell and Helena clubs’ player pool. And there’s no team from Bozeman, which also has thousands of students in the school system.
“I recruit all year round,” he continued. “Back when my son was still in high school, he was a wrestler, and I’d go to his all his meets, talk to all the coaches and parents, and recruit all of these girl wrestlers. If I met someone from a different area, I’d give them information for another club. I always ask the other coaches, ‘What are you doing to recruit?’ It’s, ‘One week before the season, I put this poster in a convenience store.’ Or they’re trying to get into the high school, when they should have started that process in the fall.”
Good competition serves everyone, but Bitterroot is in a place to foster solid internal competition. If numbers grew to a place where two full 7s teams formed in an A side / B side format, then he’d be happy. Another state title should help that pursuit.
Lead Photo
(Standing, L-R) Caitlin Allred, Sam Shier, Sadie Allred, Sierra Poulsen, Parker Brewer, Dana Cather (Coach), Jessica Mosbrucker, Shancee Herbert, Madison Lee, Cheyenne Sanner, Cheyenne Craft, Reese Jessop, Georgia Jessop. (Kneeling, L-R) Dawsyn Brewer, Emma Day, Cambree Praast