Harrisburg’s Mid-Atlantic Conference (MAC) season has come full circle. The year began and ended against Doylestown, and two single-digit decisions resulted. Many changes occurred during the eight months that separated those two games, and the Harlots developed into a team that could win when it mattered most. Now, Harrisburg heads to the DII Club National Championship as the three-time reigning MAC champion.
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Scott Stratton took over the head coaching role late in the pre-season and had six practices to acquaint himself with the team before the season-opener. He promoted a player-centric, positive environment that cultivated confident decision-makers and supportive teammates.
“It’s the piece our team has been missing,” Harrisburg co-captain Georgia Goodman said. “He’s taken our team and made it be more about the rugby.”
That process, however, takes time, and Harrisburg lost its first two games of the season – 36-29 to Doylestown and 52-12 Brandywine.
“The losses weren’t as discouraging as they might have been in the past. We understood that this was a way to start fresh,” Harrisburg co-captain Courtney Reapsome said. “We’re the three-time MAC champion, and I don’t want to say we were lucky the first two times, but we didn’t necessarily have a plan. We didn’t necessarily wing it either. So we actually started putting a process in place, and those losses were a baseline, and we grew from there.”
Harrisburg played seven of eight league games in the fall, finishing 5-2, and then readied for the spring push with a few friendlies.
“No discredit to any D3 team, but we played Frederick earlier in the season and came out strong and communicated with each other positively – better than we ever had,” Goodman singled out a game where the team started playing the way it wanted. “It manifested in a full, complete game of rugby.”
“One word to use for that match was: cohesion,” Reapsome added. “We all clicked.”
Harrisburg advanced to the MAC final four as the number two seed and played fellow 6-2 team Phoenixville White Horse in the semifinals.
“In 2016 before we went to nationals we played White Horse when they were still D3. They handed us our only loss of the season. It was a humbling experience for us. The next year, they were D2,” Reapsome said. “They have been on the incline since they came to be as a team.”
Harrisburg scored the first two tries in the semifinal (Nikki Snyder, Paulina Rodis) and once White Horse starting answering on the scoreboard, the teams traded tries. The final 10 minutes of the half saw Phoenixville surge and take a 36-24 lead into the break.
“They wanted it,” Goodman said. “They had done their homework and understood what they needed to do to hit our chinks in the armor. We made some adjustments at half to combat a really strong team.”
“We needed to play like we actually wanted to be at playoffs,” Reapsome recalled the halftime chat. “And after that first score [in the second half], we never looked back.”
Harrisburg held White Horse scoreless in the second half while flanker Snyder scored her third and fourth tries of the day, and Lindsay Libengood, Michelle Kirk, Lindsay Graves and Melissa Pattison dotted down a try apiece. Flyhalf Goodman added 12 points on six conversions to win 62-36. Meanwhile, Doylestown defeated Chesapeake 51-15 to advance to Sunday’s final.
“It was more about revenge for us because of the first game of the season. This was our way to come back and answer that,” Reapsome said of the mentality heading to the MAC championship match. “We knew coming in it was going to be a brute force match. Doylestown plays a forward-heavy game, and we had to be ready to defend against the pick-and-go.”
The co-captains pointed to flanker Alesa Tare as a defensive standout. Small in stature, the loose forward was, and always is, unintimidated in the tackle and continually pushed the defense. “She will go 150% after someone three times her size,” Reapsome praised.
A truly back-and-forth game evolved, as Libengood and Snyder scored, and Goodman converted for 12 points. And then Doylestown answered in exact fashion. Snyder scored again in minute 50, and the Dragons tied it up, 17-all, with 15 minutes to go. Even until the final whistle, the game remained even, as the ball was played at either end of the field.
Back in early September, Harrisburg dropped its game to Doylestown in the waning minutes, and Reapsome cited that in-progress cohesion as to why the team couldn’t close it out. But by early May, that chemistry was firing, and after back-to-back penalties in Doylestown’s end, Goodman got the opportunity that would end the game.
The official blew up play for a penalty – five meters in front of the posts, dead center – and Goodman heard his watch sound for the end of regulation. She verified that there was no time on the clock, and then opted for points. Goodman kicked the three-pointer easily and the final whistle blew, 20-17 to Harrisburg.
The Harlots return to DII nationals for the third-straight year and will play South champion Charlotte, which also advanced after two single-digit wins last weekend, in the quarterfinals. The eastern portion of the bracket will compete in Pittsburgh, Pa., while the western portion will meet in Ft. Worth, Texas. The teams that go 2-0 on the weekend advance to Glendale, Colo., for the final.
“It would be disingenuous to say that we don’t want to win it all but we got here by being good teammates and making sure we’re having fun,” Goodman said.
“It’s really been about one game at a time. We’ve been very conscious of using ‘if/when’ statements when making plans for the future. We don’t want to jinx ourselves,” Reapsome added. “There is a sense of belief in every single player that we can go as far as we want to go, but only together.”