Girls’ high school and middle school teams in Virginia and Maryland merged to form the Chesapeake Rugby Conference, a spring 15s league that Kat Aversano oversees as commissioner. The new competition contested its Tier A and Tier B games earlier this month, but is on Coronavirus hiatus along with the rest of the rugby world. Opening weekend included a highly anticipated match between state leaders North Bay and West End, and saw the Maryland powerhouse triumph.
“We’re off to a good start,” North Bay head coach Scott Hoffman said. “We brought two teams to [the pre-season tournament] Frostbite and played Doylestown right out of the gate. I’d consider them the best team in Pennsylvania this year. They have some high-level players in Nina [Mason] and Sophia [Linder] and have been playing really well. They’re projected to go to nationals, if that happens given all the health stuff going on.”
Hoffman indicated that a solid nucleus of veterans is directing a group that includes promising, athletic talent. Backs captain Madeleine Maurice and forwards captain Keirsten Reynolds are at the epicenter of that leadership. Prop Reynolds sets the tone in the front row and brings five years of tackle experience to the pack. Maurice, who hails from a rugby family, also has five years with North Bay and has represented Atlantis the last several years.
“She’s a great all-around player and probably the fastest player in the region,” Hoffman said of the senior. “We can play her anywhere in the back line, but in my humble opinion, fullback is her best position. She tracks the ball well, flows with the play, has great hands and is a shifty runner, and has a great foot. She’s equally adaptive at scrumhalf or wing.”
Fellow seniors like Aya Ayad and Emily Almoney also lead and will continue their rugby stories at the NCAA varsity level. Ayad is playing mostly No. 8 but is effective anywhere in the pack. She has committed to Queens University of Charlotte (N.C.), which debuted in NIRA’s Tier 2 last season and advanced to the national semifinals. Almoney is a scrumhalf and committed to West Chester University (Pa.), the current NIRA Tier 2 National Championship titleholder.
Senior and soccer crossover Atasha Mohlhenrich is only in her second year of rugby but has “made a tremendous improvement in play and is contributing at a high level. She has tremendous spirit and loves the game,” Hoffman said of the fullback and center. “Taylor McLean is a junior back who made the transition to loose forward this season to help solidify our pack play and is flourishing.”
North Bay aims for 40-45 players each season, and this year’s group is in the high 30s. But things are about to change, thanks to the creation of the middle school program a few years ago. Jeff Adamczyk coaches the youth team and has numbers in the mid-20s.
“The middle school program is robust and doing really well,” North Bay assistant coach Dave Bayne said. “There are 14-15 8th-graders who are really good. The last two years we got 2-3 players here and there, but next year will be our first big influx [of middle school grads].”
Those younger players are being pulled up into the Atlantis U16 ranks, and if the Tropical 7s hadn’t been cancelled, the select side program would have debuted its first U14 team and offered more elite opportunities to that age grade. But good 15s competition is being fostered closer to home, too, as a much needed, much discussed regional league launched this spring. Chesapeake Girls High School Tackle commissioner Kat Aversano detailed the creation of the league [read more], which involves high schools and clubs from Maryland and Virginia.
“There is a lot of excitement with regard to that,” Hoffman said of the new league. “We structured it so if teams are short on numbers or a team is newer or young, we built them into a B bracket. So clubs like us, West Carroll and Fort Hunt, we can field B sides, and those teams are able to travel to [the Tier A] venue [and location] and get meaningful playing time against other Tier B teams.”
That coordination was on display during opening weekend, March 7, when North Bay traveled to West End, Va., for a Tier A match, followed by a Tier B match against a combined Richmond and Vienna side.
“It was a tough match, not that I expected anything else from West End,” Hoffman said of the Sarah Emory- and Jim Adase-coached team. “We got ahead of them early, and good thing, because they were scrappy. That middle half to two-thirds through the game, they made it very close, but then we got a couple of tries in the end.”
As the team knocked off the rust, the back line showed that it will be a strength this year, and North Bay won its opener 50-26. Familiarity among teammates, better body positioning in the rucks, better leveraging in the tackle – they’re all work-ons and major areas of emphasis early in the season, not only for competitive reasons but for safety.
“Hanna Bella had a fantastic game,” Hoffman said of the freshman lock who aged out of middle school football. “She’s another big spirit and blessed with some size, frame wise. Her dad’s really tall so she’s 5’9”, 5’10” and plays really well from a power and leverage point of view. She carries herself well and doesn’t shy away from contact, on attack or defense. She’s doing everything we’re asking of her and asking the right questions to get better.”
North Bay is looking forward to all of its opponents but the Maryland Exiles top the list.
“They’ve been our most formidable opponent and we’ve seen them in the Maryland final the last 2-3 years,” Hoffman said. “They graduated 10 or so players but they have a good nucleus of girls and are well coached.
“The following week is a wild card in West Carroll,” the coach continued. “They had success prior to us elevating our game a little bit. They’ve been down because they’ve been really young, but now that youth has all that experience and they field a B side. I expect them to be tough this year; I’m a little excited, a little nervous.”
There are teams outside of the two states that would make great additions to the Chesapeake league but geography is a limiting factor. But there are plans for expansion after year one sets a foundation.
North Bay does a good job of connecting players with next-level opportunities, whether Atlantis, High School All-Americans or in college.
“They have the benefit of so many schools standing up programs,” Bayne said. “There’s three tiers in NIRA, so your top performers can go to DI or [DI Elite] Lindenwood or Life. But really there’s a spot for everyone, in NIRA’s [Division II and Division III], and they can log meaningful playing time. It’s exciting for them that the pathway continues to grow.
“And so many of our girls are moving on at all the different levels and they’ll come back at spring break and speak to the players,” the coach continued. “It builds them up, that there really are chances to improve their games at the next level.”
Alex Pipkin (Harvard), Sam Tancredi (Lindenwood), Hailey Thomas (Queens Univ. of Charlotte), Camile White (Penn State) and Sara-Grace McCannon (Long Island Univ) are among the recent graduates representing the program at the collegiate level. And as previously mentioned, this year’s graduating seniors have committed to higher institutions as well.
North Bay is also active in the summer so if the spring 15s season is over due to Coronavirus, the team will likely be seen on the summer 7s and USA age grade levels.
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