Kumar, seen here in 2019, scored four tries against Chico State / Photo: Jackie Finlan
Fresno State won the USA Rugby DII Spring College Championship in 2019, and then left the DII West Coast conference for more competitive play. The Bulldogs joined the DI Pacific Mountain Rugby Conference (PMRC) North, a league that had produced the DI spring champion four of the previous five years. Fresno State is proving resilient and after dropping its first three conference matches, picked up its first DI win last Sunday against Chico State.
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“We’re excited for the opportunity to play in this DI conference. It’s challenging for sure,” Fresno State co-coach Amber Cluff noted. “We know we’re at a disadvantage with no high school or feeder clubs within a few hours of us. What we do have is good organization, a great relationship with our Club Sports Department and university, and young women who are eager and willing to learn a new sport.”
Fresno State prefaced the league season with a scrimmage against Chico State and received some insight into how, “DI teams organize, how they perform around the breakdown, and what tools they used to strike,” Cluff explained.
It wasn’t enough time to ready for Stanford, however, and the Cardinal won 50-19 on Jan. 25.
“We don’t have the luxury of familiarity in this conference, so every match is a whole new learning experience and is teaching us what we need to really focus on and improve against these DI teams to pull out some wins,” Cluff added.
Fresno State then readied for a double-header home stand against UC Davis and Chico State. Against the Aggies, the Bulldogs struggled with handling errors in the first and that hampered the offensive flow. There were a few penalties for the tackler assist not releasing and not keeping one’s feet, but the errors weren’t as numerous as they were against Stanford. The result was a 7-22 deficit at halftime.
“We gave specific notes on what to clean up and what to focus on for the second half,” Cluff explained. “Down 22-7, this was not something new to us since late last season, and we know we always have the opportunity to make the comeback. They executed tremendously! With about nine minutes to go we were up 28-27 and felt like we had the momentum shift.”
But a turnover nullified another Fresno State score, and Davis was able to overpower the home side, capitalizing on penalties and mistakes for two late tries. The Aggies won 41-28.
“After the UC Davis match, we knew our focus was on recovery and there wasn’t any time to apply work-ons,” Cluff transitioned. “We’re very familiar with the two-game weekend format from our DII postseason play the last few years, but not familiar having to do it for conference matches.”
Fresno had lost lock Amy Squire to injury on Saturday but had wing Chetna Kumar return from work. The team also banked the confidence that only a comeback can provide, and the near-win against Davis encouraged Fresno to keep pushing.
“We made a few small tweaks in warm-up, and our rookies and returners were able to put together a solid display by minimizing mistakes, and executing when we needed,” Cluff lauded the effort. “Unfortunately, Chico has suffered a lot of injuries and sickness and were missing girls and had to play girls in unfamiliar positions. I think for us, it was a culmination of confidence, constant improvement, and minimized mistakes.”