The Glendale High School Girls Varsity team is going to State!
Giving it 100% both on and off the pitch
With a consistent 8th place ranking throughout the season, the Glendale High School Varsity team is going to State. Keeping this Varsity position proved to be an up and down battle and head coach Robin Roberts is extremely proud of the girls for keeping up the good fight and giving it their all. “The competition was tough all season and no games were an easy win,” said Roberts. “We bounced back and forth all season between Varsity and Varsity Developmental and [we won] enough of our games to keep us ranked as 8th the majority of the season.”
The Glendale team started their season with lower numbers than last year due to players graduating and losing players to a few High School teams, which proved challenging. “Starting the season with only 10 players on the roster was not ideal,” said Roberts, and “after a few weeks of playing in the Varsity pools, we actually opted to take ourselves out of the Varsity contest and voluntarily dropped down to the Varsity Developmental Pool, but ended up staying in the Varsity pool after all.”
Through the ups and downs, the team gave it all they had both on and off the pitch, and played as a solid team. Incoming Freshman Macey O’Field who played in the Glendale Youth Program for years made an indelible impression on the team with her hard hits as well as words of encouragement to her teammates.
Scrum half and Co-Captain Sammy Barger, Senior, proved to be one of the most consistent and solid players throughout the season. “Not only has her leadership on and off the field helped the team make it to site, but also her athleticism and ability to always be where the ball is on the field has helped make many tries happen,” stated Roberts.
Additional big impacts this season include Juliane Wera, whose speed and accuracy put a majority of the points on the board, and Lena Luciano, who added her fair share of tries and conversion kicks and proved to be a solid force to be reckoned with this season.
With a record high of 17 Girls High School teams in Varsity, Varsity Developmental and JV, there seems to be no doubt that Girls High School rugby is growing. “Every year I take the team to the Las Vegas International and notice an increase in the overall number of HS teams. I have also noticed more college scouts looking for talent and some of our graduating seniors have signed on with rugby programs at Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Colby-Sawyer and CU to name a few. We will miss our outgoing seniors but it’s exciting to see so many continue to play for their college teams!”
The Glendale Varsity High School team will take the pitch this Saturday, November 10th at Garry Berry Stadium in Colorado Springs to compete in the State playoffs. The first game will kick-off at 11:40am.