Photo courtesy @ladycavaliers_rugby Instagram
The Pleasanton Lady Cavaliers have had a tough year – outside of the Covid-19 pandemic. There were many moving parts as the NorCal team tried to build some regularity into their schedule, but the effort paid off. The Cavs traveled to Salt Lake City for the North American Invitational (NAI) 7s last week and returned with a U18 Cup championship.
RELATED: NAI 7s Schedule & Scores
Long-time Pleasanton coach Steve Lopez relocated to Oregon for work, and his absence was significant. The Cavaliers combined with the Danville Oaks and coach Win Shortland, and then separated in May 2021. At that point, a collection of parents and coaches united under the Pleasanton banner, traveling from as far as Monterey and Mill Valley for two-a-week practices. Ed Cortis and Ben Williams took over as co-head coaches, while Christian Reilly, Don Fetui and Ned Schroeder supported as assistant coaches.
“It’s an indication of how much love we have for the Cavs and the organization that Steve had set up,” Cortis said of the coaching staff that emerged. “We didn’t want to lose it.”
Pleasanton stayed busy in NorCal, and then Mickey Patterson reached out to Cortis’ daughter, Adelle, to see whether she’d be interested in rejoining the Gorillas Rugby Academy for NAI 7s.
“We have enough talent to do well at this. Surely we can go,” Cortis retraced the decision to attend the NAI. “The parents agreed, ‘Let’s give it a go.’”
At that point, the waiting list had been closed out, but interest in the Salt Lake City tournament continued to surge. Fortunately, the event organizers were able to adjust the divisional capacities, and Pleasanton booked its trip to Utah.
With the ultra-competitive tournament on the calendar, Cortis wanted to make sure the team had plenty of playing time in advance. So he got involved with the Rugby NorCal administration, and aided executive director Jason Divine in the constant, often tedious negotiations that occur between Sacramento and Bay Area teams.
“Poor ole Jason,” Cortis said after three months. “I do not envy him.”
The Cavs were playing every weekend, and good senior leadership expedited the team’s growth together.
“Every week at training and at games, it was: I don’t mind how we do against Land Park or Lamo – although we always want to beat Lamo – because it’s about reps and learning how we play together,” Cortis said. “That was the focus all season. We knew we’d probably play teams in Utah that hadn’t played together a lot, so if we could be better together, then we thought we could do well.”
And then the roster started to thin. Nikki Lynch and Abby Maciel sustained injuries, and certain incoming college freshmen, like Quinnipiac University’s Lily Cartwright, were asked not to play after July 1. Emma Chang, the Cavaliers’ brilliant scrumhalf, had a summer camp she couldn’t negotiate. Cortis contacted Land Park’s Wes Hilger, who recommended Jorgie Miller and Rebecca Varakua as additions. The duo is well known in NorCal. Miller is a hard, fit No. 8/center type, and wing Varakua is a scoring machine who is heading to Bowdoin College this fall. They trained with the squad for the two weeks leading up NAIs and settled in nicely.
But with all of the former captains unavailable to play, the coaching staff had to select a new leadership group. Rising juniors Adelle Cortis, Tarn Reilly and Leilah Bulabalavu, and rising senior Cindy Taulava took over as captains.
“They all changed when they were asked to step up,” Cortis said of the younger players’ response to leadership. “The three rising juniors were a long way from being asked to act as captains. We have more senior girls – our inside center, Athena Lewis, and our wing, Brayona Travis – and they were happy being led by younger girls.
“The one who surprised me the most, and I know this sounds terrible, is my daughter,” Cortis said of Adelle. “What changes have become of her that she’s now able to be this confident? Barking on the pitch to bump and slide on defense, to pull it together at halftime or at end of the game and talk about how it worked. … I sound like a one-eyed dad talking about his daughter, but her transformation was remarkable.”
When Pleasanton traveled to Utah, Cortis said the goal was to win.
“I said what every coach says, ‘We’re going there to win,’ because I wanted to engender that purpose in the girls,” Cortis said. “But I had other priorities. I wanted to make sure we got our rising seniors exposed to potential recruitment.”
In particular, the staff wanted newcomer Ntima Mampouya and Miller to have prominent roles on the pitch so they’d have an opportunity to be seen and start college conversations. That was the coaches’ mission, but it stoked some controversy within the ranks.
Pleasanton went 2-1 on day one of the NAI 7s, dropping its opener 24-17 to Rock Rugby Academy, and then rallying with a 32-5 win against TOA (Idaho) and 21-19 victory against hometown Majestics.
“On the first day, we played our best seven as long as we could and then put in the subs,” Cortis recapped the roster strategy. “At the end of the day, there was a mutiny within the girls. ‘This isn’t how the Cavs play. This wasn’t about unequal game time. We’re a family and we play together.’ The girls, and the coaches, were in tears as they described what they thought was going to happen at the tournament and what was actually happening. It was a really confronting conversation and you have to admire the girls to say to the coaches, ‘This isn’t acceptable.’”
Cortis and staff embrace an open style of coaching. There’s conversation between players and adults, and so the coaches changed their approach for day two. Saturday started with a 27-10 quarterfinal win against the San Diego Mustangs.
“It’s hard to know if that change led us to winning,” Cortis said while sizing up the semifinal against Idaho’s Eagle High School. “I would have played Leilah and Cindy in the front row and hope they could go 14 minutes. But after the team conversation where the two front row subs said, ‘That’s not fair, we need game time,’ we started Cindy and Ntima together, and then Jiya [Sandhu] in with Leilah. So Leilah was fresh in the second half. We were down 10-14 against Eagle after the siren had gone. Eagle was penalized for not-releasing and we quick tapped the ball to Leilah. She belted down the sideline and scored, and that was it. If we had followed our day-one strategy, I’m not sure she would have had the strength and speed to do that.”
Cortis confessed that Pleasanton was lucky to beat Eagle, that the Idaho coaching staff had been screaming for a kick to touch as the game went a minute-and-a-half past regulation.
“I’m not sure if it was the rest or better connection – who knows how we got the result,” Cortis said. “But we had a bunch of 16- and 17-year-old girls teaching the old men something, which is terrific.”
Cortis credited Eagle as the team’s toughest competition of the tournament, and the Cavaliers went onto the final to beat Pioneer 7s 22-10.
“They’re all over the moon. They haven’t been off Instagram or Snapchat, or whatever they’re on, since then,” Cortis said of the post-title celebrations. “For me, I’ve seen my daughter lose in Las Vegas finals, LA finals, World Rugby Youth finals, and so she’s lost a lot of finals. It was weird to be the coach and see her win. Jorgie, too – those kids who have been doing this for a long time but haven’t necessarily won something big like this.”
The U18 Cup win was obviously special, but Cortis asserted that it wasn’t made more special because of the Covid-19 year that had preceded it.
“It’s more special coming out of the year they’ve just had – change in coaches, all their leaders getting injured or having to leave,” Cortis clarified. “You find these younger group of girls having to dig in and gut it out and have incredible bravery to come to the coaches on Friday night and say, ‘This isn’t working for us. It’s not right.’ And have us adjust and change. It overrides the fact that it was Covid. We had a decent 7s season and played every weekend, so we don’t look back at the last 3-4 months and think we missed much.”
Pleasanton and much of Rugby NorCal will take break for the summer and maybe see the return of fall 7s and then 15s later in the year. Cortis is still pondering his coaching future.
“Never say, ‘never,’ Cortis closed. “And like I said to my daughter, ‘[A title] doesn’t really mean anything until it’s a repeat or three-peat.”
PLEASANTON CAVALIERS
@ NAI 7s, SALT LAKE CITY
Leilah Bulabalavu
Aidan Bursey
Adelle Cortis
Elisa Hoffman
Athena Lewis
Ntima Mampouya
Jorgie Miller
Tarn Reilly
Jiya Sandhu
Cindy Taulava
Brayona Travis
Rebecca Varakua