Southeast Polk Wins Iowa State Championship

Southeast Polk ended the Iowa Youth Rugby Association (IAYRA) season with an undefeated record, but that’s not to say that the path to the 7s state championship was easy. In fact, the team needed a come-from-behind performance to secure the 2019 title, a tribute to the increasing level of competition within the state.

Numbers were an issue last year, and Southeast Polk ended the season with just 12 players. But with only two graduations, eight players returned for 2019 to form the core.

“Emmersyn Forest is by far my leader,” Southeast Polk head coach Joe White said of the senior captain and vocal scrumhalf. “She’s the only four-year player we have and has the most rugby intelligence on the team. She knows what the team should look like and is able to be that leader on the field. I’m not the kind of coach that likes to yell plays or whatever from the sideline, so all of that on-field management comes from the captains.”

Fellow seniors Hannah Plummer (flyhalf) and Kaylee Sartell (prop) are also impactful leaders, while junior Sarah Breitsprecker, a natural athlete who put in solid off-season work, has developed into a dominant force on the pitch this year. Breitsprecker, who will represent the Stars next month, is one of several players who have represented the Iowa Hawkettes, the state’s all-star 7s team.

Southeast Polk started the season with 30 players and ended with 22 after conditioning expectations thinned out the pool. That was enough to field separate JV and varsity teams, and of the newcomers, Ava Lacquement has impressed.

“I didn’t know right out of the shoot but I was optimistic that we’d be competitive,” White said of pre-season expectations. “The girls’ league is changing every year. It’s more and more competitive, and they’re playing better rugby. For a couple of years, it was: We’ll just find some track stars, and they can run really fast but they don’t really play rugby. But now, to be successful in the girls’ league, you have to play rugby and you have to have a strategy. We knew we’d be competitive in that manner, and after the first week, I knew we could grind out a win.”

And that’s because White and S&C coach Matt Sillanpaa invested heavily in the team’s conditioning. Last spring, the duo created a specific program for the boys’ team – for which they’re both assistant coaches – and applied the same exact program with the same standards to the girls’ team. The first 20-30 minutes of training is spent on conditioning, and then when the players’ bodies are fatigued, the skills sessions begin.

“There were a lot of tears and hyperventilation and a lot of emotions those first couple of weeks,” White recalled. “But after the first couple of games, when we had plenty of energy left and the other teams were just dogging, they realized that conditioning was going to pay off.”

Southeast Polk went 10-0 in the regular season and got its toughest push from Roosevelt. It took a game-ending try from Lacquement to secure that 22-17 mid-season victory, and that game reinforced the importance of late-game fitness. The state championship is a final-four format, and so Southeast Polk (1) faced Cedar Falls (4) in the semifinals, and Roosevelt (2) faced Dowling (3) last Saturday. Southeast Polk edged Cedar Falls 15-12, while Roosevelt won more comfortably over Dowling, 26-10.

“They were confident, but not cocky,” White said of the team’s mentality heading into the state championship. “They knew they had a fight on their hands and you could see it running through their heads. Roosevelt has a great program. Last year they were the state champs and they won it off the speed of a couple of girls. This year they have a new coach who actually taught them rugby, and after that game mid-season, we knew it was going to be a fight.”

Southeast Polk went up 10-0 as Annika Dearden and Breitsprecker scored tries. Roosevelt then answered with two tries, and a conversion gave the Des Moines squad a 12-10 lead into halftime.

“I only try to pick two things to talk about at halftime. I don’t want to bombard them with everything I saw,” White recalled the halftime chat. “So we talked a lot about our defense – just maintaining a flat line – and changing our kickoffs a bit. There are a couple of players we wanted to avoid and we kept kicking to them.”

But then Roosevelt scored first after the break and with two-and-a-half minutes to go, Southeast Polk trailed 19-10.

“I was definitely concerned,” White confessed. “They’ve done it before – scored in the last few seconds – but we’ve never been down by two tries before.”

Roosevelt sent the restart right to Lacquement, who returned the kick, broke a few tackles and planted some stiff-arms en route to a try. She had done the same exact thing when the two teams faced each other in the regular season.

Southeast Polk quickly assembled for the restart in an attempt to catch Roosevelt off guard, and the tactic worked, as the grubber was knocked-on. Southeast Polk took the attacking scrum, moved the ball from sideline to sideline, and Sartell broke a few tackles for the dive-over try and lead change: 21-19.

There was time for one more restart, but after a poach and kick to touch, the title was Southeast Polk’s.

“To come back in a game like – it was such a good game, I cannot say it enough. Roosevelt has a great team this year and I have nothing but respect for them,” White said. “My players are grinders. Of all the teams in the semifinal and final, mine was probably the slowest, but their rugby knowledge and conditioning are what got them to where they’re at.”

White gave one more shoutout to the coaching staff of Sillanpaa and son Collin, as well as the leadership of Forest, Breitsprecker and Plummer, who all came together to make this championship happen.

What’s next? The Iowa Hawkettes, of which several Southeast Polk players are veterans, has launched its first 15s program, in addition to summer 7s, so watch for new opportunities in Iowa.

All photos: Amanda White Photography

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