WPL crowd sticking out the rain
As one might expect, USA Women’s 15s head coach Rob Cain in is Atlanta for the Women’s Premier League (WPL) national championships. He was observing yesterday’s five games at Life University’s Lupo Field not only keeping an eye on his Eagles heading to Chicago and abroad this November but also adding players to the Eagle pool. He indicated he added six new players after yesterday’s outing, and we saw him ending the day chatting with Kaelene Lundstrum of Twin Cities (who is already a capped 7s and 15s Eagle).
Not all of the November tour athletes are competing in the WPL championships. Notably missing are Beantown’s Kimber Rozier and Stacey Bridges, but their absence is more likely related to their day jobs. Rozier is assistant coach at Harvard and Bridges is assistant coach at Dartmouth, and those two teams are contesting the Ivy championship today. Beantown dropped a heart-breaker in the 5th place play-in round yesterday, as Chicago North Shore scored at the death to win 15-14. Now Beantown, and the D.C. Furies, are vulnerable to a challenge match from Life West. Beantown head coach Mere Baker was vocally unhappy with yesterday’s performance but there’s still one opportunity for redemption.
Misha Green was also missing from New York, which lost to Glendale 26-17 in the semifinals. Other tour-bound Eagles competing at nationals:
Atlanta: Kaitlyn Broughton, Cortney Kuehl, Darian Lovelace
Beantown: None.
Berkeley: Katy Augustyn, Evan Hoese
Chicago North Shore: Brittany Simunac (non-traveling reserve)
Glendale: Gabby Cantorna, Melissa Finkelstein, Joanna Kitlinski
New York: Sarah Levy, Alycia Washington, Carly Waters
ORSU: Rachel Johnson
San Diego: Megan Foster, Kate Zackary, Liz Trujillo (non-traveling reserve)
Also, New York head coach Tiffany Faaee, Glendale assistant coach Jamie Burke and Glendale scrumhalf Jenny Lui are on the Eagle staff.