The six Women’s Elite Rugby (WER) head coaches announced their five foundational players, who will set the tone for their respective teams in the new professional 15s league. These quintets bring real shape to the league, and real excitement for the forthcoming insights into how the teams and competition are coming together. There is a lot of to cover so this review includes the first three (alphabetically) teams: Bay, Boston and Chicago. Stay tuned for part two with Denver, New York and Twin Cities. [lead photo: Mike Conners @MikeConnersPhoto23]

The majority of players are familiar entities, gaining visibility at the international, professional and all-star levels. Most players have also distinguished themselves in the now-dormant Women’s Premier League (WPL) or USA Club Rugby Division I. They play pro and amateur 7s and 15s, USA Rugby League and with Rugby Tens franchises. They are the range of rugby — from stalwarts who are synonymous with their city’s rugby, to youngsters who offer a glimpse of the next generation of the sport. They’ll be setting cultural standards in their home clubs and ideally attracting the best rugby players to the new league.

These player descriptions in the following subsections by no means cover all of their involvements rugby wise, but together, they’ve played all over the world, in every corner of the U.S. and at the highest levels of the game.

(SF) BAY

The six WER teams are rooted in existing WPL markets, which makes sense for a first-year competition. The San Francisco Bay Area was home to two WPL teams — Berkeley and Life West — and four of the five foundational WER players for “Bay” are former All Blues and Gladiatrix. (Note: Life West and Berkeley will still be fielding teams in USA Club Rugby’s Division I and Division II, respectively.) The fifth player hails from the Seattle Rugby Club, and WER Bay coach Hannah Stolba knows that individual from their shared time with the Pacific Coast Grizzlies U23 program.

• Olivia Bernadel-Huey
• Elena Edwards
• Celine Liulamaga
• Jade McGrath
• Roxelle Thomas

Love the balance and diversity of this group. Back-three Bernadel-Huey is the homegrown player, starting her rugby career at Bishop O’Dowd High School, then continuing at Stanford and All Blues, before also playing overseas in Australia. Edwards started playing at Bowling Green State (Ohio) and is the vet, bringing a decade-plus of Berkeley front-row power to the group. Center McGrath is the third Berkeley player and has rugby roots from the East Coast – Boston College and Scion among them — and is being honored as one of WRCRA’s 2024 “15 Under 30” Award recipients. 

Second/back row Thomas, originally from Texas, started playing rugby at St. Mary’s College (Calif.) and served as Life West co-captain this past season. Thomas is a USA U23 player. Liulamaga is the outlier in that the front row has not played in the WPL, but has international experience as a member of Seattle, which competes in both USA Club Rugby and the B.C. Premier (Canada). Liulamaga started playing rugby with Rainier (Wash.) and went on to represent the Pacific Northwest U23s and Pacific Coast U23 players.

BOSTON

WER Boston head coach Kitt Wagner Ruiz is a former 15s Eagle and USA age grade assistant coach. Most recently, she was part of the staffs at a DI NCAA varsity program (Brown University) and with Beantown’s WPL side, and those connections echo throughout her foundational five.

• Cassidy Bargell
• Yeja Dunn
• Emily Henrich
• Akweley Okine
• Paige Stathopoulos

All five players have played for Beantown, which is no surprise given the club’s longevity and success in the region. Three started playing rugby in high school, and four did their college rugby at DI NCAA varsity programs. Three are current USA Women’s National Team members.

Stathopoulos is the only Massachusetts native in the group and started playing ball at Boston University. The USA hooker is currently overseas playing for the Premiership Women’s Rugby (PWR) Ealing Trailfinders, also the English home to USA captain Kate Zackary and prop Alivia Leatherman. Henrich is also in the PWR, representing the Leicester Tigers (alongside USA’s Tess Feury and Tahlia Brody). The Orchard Park, N.Y., native started playing rugby at six years old, debuted with Dartmouth in 2018, and earned her first USA cap in November of that year.

Yeja Dunn is also a Dartmouth rugby grad but straddled the program’s club and varsity stages. In 2023, Dunn was honored as a Wearer of the Green, i.e., inducted into Dartmouth’s Athletics Hall of Fame. The loose forward has been a long-time Beantown player and lynchpin.

Bargell and Okine played their college rugby at Harvard University and had one overlapping season in fall 2015. Bargell hails from the storied Summit HS (Colo.), while Okine did four years with West Chester RFC (Pa.) in high school. Bargell came up through the USA Pathways and is now a capped USA scrumhalf. Okine exerts influence in the front row and was Beantown’s last WPL forwards captain.

CHICAGO

The Chicago foundational five hail from the WPL’s Chicago North Shore and DI Chicago Lions, and they were chosen by head coach Bryan Colbridge.

• Anabel Diaz
• Emma Farnan
• Cienna Jordan
• Betty Nguyen
• Kadie Sanford

Three of the five foundational players are Chicago rugby, chief among them being Kadie Sanford. The Chicago North Shore stalwart started playing rugby at Univ. Michigan and developed into a versatile forward who is a force in the front row, second row and back row. But don’t pigeon hole Sanford into the 15s pack, as she also prevalent in 7s and rugby league. Sanford was North Shore’s last WPL forwards captain.

Betty Nguyen is also a prominent figure in the Windy City and has been a standout back-three player for the DI Chicago Lions. Nguyen has also played in the WPL with North Shore, and is also developing the next rugby generation as a collegiate and all-star coach — contributions that WRCRA acknowledged with the 2023 15 Under 30 Awards. Anabel Diaz is a Chicago Lion as well and has been crushing it in that front row since 2017. Since the Lions are DI, Diaz hasn’t played in the WPL but does has elite-level experience as an internationally capped prop with the Mexico Women’s National Team, Las Serpientes.

Cienna Jordan and Emma Farnan are more recent faces of Chicago rugby. Jordan (photo below) found the sport while studying abroad at University College London and those three months were the Indiana native’s only exposure to the sport before the pandemic. Her rugby career didn’t really take off until 2023 with Chicago North Shore. Jordan turned heads at the 2024 All-Armed Forces 7s Championship and USA Club Rugby 7s Championship.

Farnan started playing as a grad student at the University of Notre Dame. Between May-July 2022, the New York native played DI collegiate, WPL (North Shore) and PR 7s to garner much deserved attention. A commanding fullback with a stellar boot and finishing ability, Farnan is also an aerospace engineer.

All told, Chicago’s foundational five bring that sense of tradition and future that mark the WER.

Stay tuned for the second half of the foundational five: Denver, New York and Twin Cities.