WPL Rests Before Final Sprint

The Women’s Premier League (WPL) has wrapped on 11 weeks of regular-season play and will now enter a competition-wide bye for Labor Day Weekend. Games resume on Saturday, Sept. 9, and teams have 2-3 matches remaining before the post-season kicks off on Oct. 7.

Last weekend, top-ranked Berkeley and Beantown played at their respective home pitches, and both teams scored 49 points against their opponents. The All Blues allowed one converted try against Chicago North Shore, and Beantown shut out the TC Amazons. The Midwest teams are now out of the running for a semifinal berth.

Meanwhile, the Colorado Gray Wolves banked an important bonus-point win (31-7) against Life West in California. Read the full recap. At this point, the Gladiatrix are a long shot for the semifinals. Life West would need to win its final two matches and then rely on New York to lose its final three matches.

The following are the standings after Week 11 (see original):

With the final four essentially in sight, now the race is for a top-two finish in the standings, which affords a hometown semifinal on Oct. 7. And the WPL has recently posted on its schedule that the national championship on Oct. 14 will occur at the Infinity Park turf field in Glendale, Colo.

As previously mentioned, the WPL post-season overlaps with the USA Women’s National Team (WNT) tour to South Africa for the WXV Tier 2 competition. TRB has just learned that the Eagles will precede that southern hemisphere tour with a prep camp in the U.K. and games against Ireland and Wales. USA Rugby will release the full details, but that means some USA pool players will leave their WPL teams before the season is over. More to come.

“Now that we know 4 of our players will be heading overseas with the USA we are working to get more folks eligible for nationals and fill in those spots,” Beantown co-head coach Kitt Wagner Ruiz shared. “This is a great opportunity for others to step in and step up!”

WEEK 12 – SEPT 9
Berkeley @ TC Amazons
Beantown @ Colorado Gray Wolves *
Chicago North Shore @ New York ^

* Game of the week
^ If New York wins, then the top-four will be locked