St. Louis head coach Amy Holtsclaw, when considering the weight of a trip to the USA Rugby DII Club National Championship, reflected on a crucial moment in the team’s history.
“There was this point where we were sitting in a parking lot one Saturday. ‘We have six players. Do we fold or do we push through and work to build back up,’” Holtsclaw said of that turning point in 2013.
That group, which today is represented by Holtsclaw and backs captain Danielle Lopez, dug in, built numbers, and continues to develop depth alongside competitiveness. After steady gains, the breakthrough occurred last year, when St. Louis defeated the KC Jazz in the DII Frontier championship.
“That was momentous. It showed the players how good they’ve become,” said Holtsclaw, who’s served as head coach since fall 2013. “There are certain teams that get in your head and you end up beating yourself. We finally got past that.”
That victory meant the team’s first trip to the national Round of 8, but St. Louis fell short performance wise.
“They weren’t as excited. They were worn out at that point. Practices weren’t crisp and it showed,” Holtsclaw recalled the 0-2 weekend. “There were a lot of good individual performances but we weren’t playing as a team and had really good competition.”
The team processed that outing but didn’t dwell on it. And when the majority of players returned for the annual pre-season chat, everyone was on board for a nationals push in 2017-18. St. Louis’ five league games were scheduled from September through April, and two of those games ended up being forfeits. That left a lot of room, and need, for competitive friendlies.
“We tried a new thing this year and used non-league matches to say, ‘Hey, we’ve been working on this, let’s see if it works in a game,’ and took some risks,” said Holtsclaw, who pointed to opponents like Lindenwood University and Milwaukee Scylla as top challengers.
Holtsclaw also adjusted how the team prepared for games. The coaching staff, which includes Sabres staple Geoff Barnes, Luke Matthews and Kate Wolff, researches opponents and tailors practices as necessary, but keeps the players focused on the controllable aspects of the game.
After a 4-1 regular season, St. Louis advanced to the Frontier final four as the second seed and defeated Wichita 48-32 in the semifinals. Meanwhile the Jazz topped the Kansas Bison 102-12 for a berth to the final.
“It wasn’t a blowout by any means, it was tough, but it wasn’t that close,” Holtsclaw said of the 41-17 Frontier championship win. “I don’t know if the Jazz underestimated us – we played them a month prior and we didn’t play well at all. They blew us out. It was a horrible game, both physically and mentally, and we were in a funk after that. We were a different team by Frontier playoffs, though. We had some players back, were practicing differently and were able to play our game.”
St. Louis then readied for the trip to Texas, where it would face Pacific North champion Sacramento Amazons in the national quarterfinals. Training focused on tackle completion.
“We knew Sacramento was a big, physical team, and so we focused on everyone getting their tackles down,” Holtsclaw said. “We didn’t want to let them get up to speed running the ball because they could probably run us over. We really benefitted from low, quick tackles.”
The coach pointed to prop Anna Albrecht, forwards captain Mandy Smith and No. 8 Jennifer Pautz for leading the defensive charge up front, and tipped her hat to the entire back line for solid tackling. Holtsclaw was especially impressed with newcomer Brittany David, “who just gets it.” The flanker has a wrestling background and thus understands the body positioning aspect of the sport.
After building a 31-10 halftime lead, St. Louis withstood a four-try response from Sacramento for a 48-30 win and trip to the semifinals against Old Pueblo. The teams met in the 2017 national quarterfinals, and the Lightning won that game 30-15.
“We remembered a good, fast team, and a really good flyhalf [Alex Rath],” Holtsclaw said. “We knew we couldn’t give them advantage by letting the ball get out wide and that we had to cover kicks really well.”
Old Pueblo scored two tries quickly, and Holtsclaw confessed that she was worried. St. Louis settled down and worked three first-half tries through wing Jolene Steibel, flyhalf Kate Kloster and wing Meredith Schwartz. Rath kicked penalties on either side of the break, and Old Pueblo trailed 18-19 until the fourth quarter. Kloster dotted down another two tries in fewer than 10 minutes, 31-18, and the Lightning scored at the end of regulation, 31-23 the final.
“We got lucky a couple of times,” Holtsclaw said. “We left some holes, had some bad passes – things they could have taken advantage of. Same for us; we didn’t take advantage of everything we should have.”
St. Louis is now heading to the national final against Charlotte, which defeated Harrisburg 31-26 and Providence 19-15 to advance as the eastern rep. Holtsclaw said there are no nerves just yet. It’s a logistical sprint between winning regionals and getting to the final in Glendale, Colo., so energies are focused on coordinating the trip.
“Now we’re just enhancing what we’ve been doing. We’re not changing too much,” the coach said of the current lead-up. “We’re working on being more aware of the options we have. At one point I said, ‘We’re very predictable in our game and we can’t do that against Charlotte.’”
But the coach is certainly feeling better about the team’s mentality and energy this post-season.
“The players are phenomenal,” Holtsclaw concluded. “When we were interviewed locally by a news station, they asked, ‘What has contributed to your success?’ Luck! We’ve had people come to this team and they have just been naturally good. We just enhance what they’re doing and everything works so good together.”
St. Louis and Charlotte will take the pitch Saturday, June 2 at 3:00 p.m. Mountain, and the national championship will be live-streamed via FloRugby.