During the coronavirus shutdown, TRB is turning attention to collegiate and high school players and coaches who had their final spring seasons cut short.
Zoe DeMassa is a founding member of the Fairfield Rugby Club girls’ high school team. She spent a lifetime playing organized sports, ones with robust support structures and awash in popularity, but it took no more than one rugby practice to lure the dedicated athlete onto the pitch for good. During a summer camp after her sophomore year, DeMassa knew that rugby would be her pursuit into college, and the graduating senior was looking forward to making the most of this spring before transitioning to Penn State. Regrettably, the Connecticut high school season is on hiatus due to coronavirus but hasn’t been completely canceled, just yet.
DeMassa played softball and basketball, and after unsuccessfully lobbying her mom, Marcy, to play ice hockey, found the physical element for which she was searching in jiu jitsu. She spent five years with the martial art and intends to pursue it again one day, but her success in and dedication to jiu jitsu opened the door for rugby.
“I’m not sure why,” DeMassa said of mom’s openness to rugby. “Maybe she got bored of me begging to play a contact sport. She let me do jiu jitsu and that wore her down a bit.”
DeMassa joined the volleyball team as a freshman at Fairfield Ludlowe High School and played all four years in high school, and also threw for the track & field team. Meanwhile, Fairfield Rugby Club had a handful of girls who were running around with the boys’ team. During the 2017-18 school year, when DeMassa was a sophomore, Fairfield made the push for a full-on girls’ team, and that’s when DeMassa saw a sign on the side of the road advertising the team.
“I went to the first practice and fell in love with it immediately,” DeMassa said. “The coaches were really nice, I met a bunch of friends, and it continued like that forever.”
The experience contrasted with DeMassa’s experience with volleyball, a sport that she had originally intended to be her pursuit in college.
“It was a completely different atmosphere,” DeMassa said. “Volleyball is very individualistic, and it can be catty. It used to stress me out so much because it’s so competitive within the team, but with rugby, everyone wants everyone to get better because it’s such a team environment.”
In spring 2018, Fairfield joined Rugby Connecticut’s developmental division along with Greenwich High School, and the two teams share a friendly rivalry to this day. The team is a club team with players from multiple schools and fielded just enough for a 15s side. There were no room for injuries, no varsity and jv sides, and everyone was a starter.
“If you showed up then you got playing time no matter what,” DeMassa said. “In the end that worked out to my benefit because I got real playing time almost immediately.
“We were lucky to have very experienced coaches,” DeMassa credited Jason O’Brien, Ben Bratton and Mark Riley for continually engaging the group. “Jason O’Brien played for Canada and is a very enthusiastic coach. He drills us harder than we think we can go. A lot of girls started playing rugby just looking for a random sport because they wanted something else, and it turned into a passion for a lot of them. I think that says a lot.”
DeMassa settled into the hooker position and learned about the front row and lineouts, and everything else that is completely foreign about the sport.
“I really like the physicality of it,” DeMassa said of first impressions. “I like the fast pace and how much you have to be thinking ahead. I’m a very communicative player and I like how necessary that is.”
DeMassa regards that first Fairfield season warmly, even the early games where inexperience ruled play. The team pulled out some wins, so that built some positivity, but there were definitely challenges for that inaugural group.
“A lot of us had to drive so far,” DeMassa tapped into the challenges of club versus single-school teams. “We couldn’t afford a bus so we’re driving individually to games. There’s one uniform, not everyone got socks or shorts. It’s hard to find unity at first because we weren’t as connected as the previous teams we had all been on with other sports. When you play for a regular high school, you get support from the school. You hang out and understand each other better because you’re at the same school. It’s harder [with a club team] because we’re coming from different backgrounds and different schools and towns, but I wouldn’t have met these people any other way. We quickly got it together.”
After that spring 2018 season, Marcy DeMassa started doing her research and signed Zoe up to player camps and showcases to get her in the system.
“I went to the Brown [University] summer camp and that’s when I made the decision that I wanted to play this sport in college,” DeMassa said. “‘I love this sport and want to take it as far as possible.’ I dropped the college search for volleyball and picked it back up for rugby.”
She met Ryszard Chadwick and learned about the Northeast Academy. She tried out for Atlantis and debuted for the select side at the 2018 New York 7s. She also met Penn State head coach Kate Daley, an encounter that would greatly influence her future goals. During these assemblies, she drew inspiration from players like Quinnipiac University commit Grace Dagenais from Simsbury, and All-Americans Nina Mason and Sophia Linder from Doylestown. They set standards for rugby IQ and drove teammates to be better with a competitive spirit and want to win.
Sophia Linder, one of DeMassa’s inspirational teammates / Photo: Jackie Finlan
DeMassa then pumped that experience back into Fairfield and the team celebrated a good second season on the backs of many returning players. DeMassa, who turns 18 years old on March 21, was named captain for the 2019-20 season.
“When I was a sophomore my first season, it was me and about 10 other freshmen and sophomores. That is the heart of the team today,” said DeMassa, who is one of two seniors on the team next to Fabiola Millien-Faustin. “These people have been here for 2-3 seasons and now we just all love the game and the team, and we want to make sure we’re leaving behind a team where younger people are joining and keeping it alive.
“Making the team desirable to be on is important,” she continued. “Our first season we were all just super new and didn’t know the rules, and now we want to prove that we’re the real deal and we can have these tough games and be taken seriously.”
Players like Sam Epperson and Kaylan Jernigan are emblems of the intensity and dedication that DeMassa wants Fairfield to represent.
“Kaylan is pretty young and she is just an absolute beast,” DeMassa said. “She’s a big inspiration, is at every practice, and is just fun to be around. She wants to win and has that competitive mentality that I feel helps drives a lot of teams.
“Sam just yells her head off every game and hypes us all up,” the captain continued. “She has that competitive energy, too, and wants us to win and do well. There are so many girls like that on the team.”
Off-season training picked up in intensity, and DeMassa found herself talking plays and tactics with teammates during class, just for fun. The momentum signaled an overall desire to improve this season, making the coronavirus hiatus an especially tough hit.
“There’s still a chance for a high school season, but practices have been cancelled until further notice,” DeMassa explained. “It’s just sad because we were just getting to a good place where practices were really good and everyone was understanding their roles. I’ve watched the younger girls grow and they know what to do now, what decisions to make, what plays to run. We were gearing up for such a good season.”
Whether or not the Connecticut high school season resumes, DeMassa already has rugby penciled into the calendar. She’s hoping for opportunities with Northeast Academy and/or Atlantis, and then in fall 2020, she’ll join Penn State.
“I met Kate Daley during my first year on Atlantis and I liked her from the start,” DeMassa said of the Nittany Lions’ head coach. “From that point on, I did every Penn State camp I could go to. Once I toured the school, I fell in love with it. I also liked Quinnipiac, so that was a hard decision. The coaches there are amazing, but Penn State was a better school for me.
“I am so excited to play in college,” DeMassa said. “My team is pretty new and a lot of the teams in Connecticut are pretty new, so there are a lot of girls who are new or not sure about the sport they want to play. I’m really excited to be on a team where everyone is just as passionate about rugby as I am. They’re there to play and get better and play teams where it’s a bigger deal to win. I’m so excited for that next level and that passion that comes with it because everyone wants to be there.”
DeMassa indicated that there are a handful of Fairfield players who are curious about collegiate rugby and asking for insight. She wants to be a resource for those players even after she leaves. It’s a value she learned early in her rugby career.
“I’m speaking for my team but I think I can speak for everyone: Rugby coaches and players are a special breed,” DeMassa closed. “The connection is better than any other sport I’ve played. People put everything into it and it turns into a passion. Even though my team isn’t the most technically advanced, that commitment and fun and passion they have, that’s what kept me in it.”
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