7's on NBC Saturday and Sunday

Catholic Memorial and Divine Savior Holy Angels high schools are headed to Philadelphia this weekend to compete in the High School championship connected to the collegiate 7's championships.

The college tournament is broadcast on NBC both Saturday and Sunday, sometime around 3-5pm.  Watch and you may catch some glimpses of the Wisconsin girls who are participating.

Wisconsin compete in the college finals along with rivals Penn St and last year's champ, Dartmouth.

The high school girls bracket also looks stacked as Fallbrook travels to the East coast for the event, as well as the New York Athletic Club's u-19 girls team and Hempfield. 

Youth Rugby Outdraws Collegiate Finals

USA Rugby runs an online free access webstreaming site for its championship events.  Run under the Ustream moniker, matches are often broadcast live and then archived for later viewing at anytime.  While it is sometimes unwieldy and difficult to find matches, this year's high school girls championship final rounds for the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th place matches can be viewed at this link for USTREAM-USA RUGBY.  It's on the third page of games, since they've added a lot more games since then.

What's interesting to note though, is the viewing numbers.  The Division I Collegiate final between Penn St and Stanford University drew 581 views.  The high school championship drew 695 viewers when we last checked.    If you combined viewing numbers for the high school 1st and 3rd place matches compared to the D1 and D2 collegiate women's finals, the numbers are very similar, with the collegiate outdrawing by 53 views, ths far.  

What does that tell you?  While this is only anecdotal evidence, and we probably shouldn't read too much into it, it is clear that college rugby isn't (yet) at the level of other major college athletics in terms of fans, funding, and fanfare.   Should American rugby be investing even more in the youth game or collegiate as a result?   I'm sure we'd love to invest in both significantly.   

This left our staff at WGR talking about how many high school sports outdraw college athletics? These numbers should send a message to our collegiate and youth commitees.   Let's capitalize on this.  If you want to improve exposure, let's improve the national and regional tournaments, in addition to state championships. 

Marquette University Coaching Clinic

We've been asked to post again the info for the coaching certification clinic at Marquette University June 23rd and June 24th. 

Just go directly to this link at USA Rugby.   You'll need to be a registered member of USA Rugby to register on this link.  If you still need to do that, go to usarugby.org and enter the membership section.

3rd Annual Mauston Border Battle

The Kettle Moraine Knightmares again hosted a Border Battle between MN and WI teams.  This is the 3^rd year of the tournament that meets at a neutral site in Mauston, WI.  Tournament regulars Armstrong and Hopkins from MN came to play against the usual WI teams, KM and Oak Creek as well as new participants, Brookfield and Wauwatosa.  It was an extremely windy day, and teams struggled going into the wind.  This led to teams trying to take the most advantage out of their half with the wind.  Kicking for points, and punting down field to keep the play in the opposition’s half were common.  Teams that were able to keep possession going into the wind were the ones that had success. 

Armstrong came away from the day leading all teams at 3-0.  After a tight match against KM, where they managed to get by Wisconsin's #3 team, 17-12, they proceeded able to build on their strengths as one of the top MN teams.  They finished with wins against Oak Creek and Brookfield.  Hopkins as well got past a close Oak Creek match to build to a 2-0 day with a final win against Wauwatosa.  In a make-up game, Brookfield defeated Wauwatosa.   

MN is just heading into their playoffs for their state tournament.  The Border Battle is a nice change of pace in a long spring season and a chance to see competition from a neighboring state.  It’s been clear from the tournaments this spring that the success of OH, WI and MN programs comes from the depth and competitiveness of the individual leagues each faces on a regular basis. 

KM	12	Armstrong	17
Oak Creek	17	Hopkins	25
Tosa	12	Brookfield	22
Oak Creek	0	Armstrong	55
Tosa	5	Hopkins	29
Brookfield	0	Armstrong	41

One Publication's Final Rankings

     The latest Rugby Magazine high school girls rankings have been released.  While always debatable, especially when so many of the ranked teams have never played each other, it is interesting to see how those in other parts of the country view programs across the country.

     What isn’t debatable is that it’s been a great year for WGR participants and rugby in-general as good girls teams are sprouting up all over the country, especially in hotbeds across the Midwest (check out Indiana and Ohio) and areas like Oregon and California. 

     Wisconsin, with two divisions of play, two competitive championship finals in the fall, and five teams competing regionally this spring, had a lot of girls playing high level rugby.  They were fortunate to experience the team travel that is such a part of the rugby experience.  Improvements were seen in Menomonee Falls and Oak Creek battling for the D2 title down to the final minute; they will probably move up to D1 next year.  Vernon and DSHA meeting in the Midwest second division final was awesome.  Kettle Moraine finishing third in the Midwest capped another good year for them.  Plus, DSHA and CMHS finishing 3^rd and 4^th respectively at Nationals was special. 

     According to the latest ranking by one source, Rugby Magazine, DSHA is #7, CMHS #9, and Lakewood #4 in the USA.    Those girls have a lot to be proud of.  Those three Midwest teams finished 2,3,4 at Nationals.   All three Midwest teams were dropped in the rankings compared to their finish at Nationals.  After playing three top teams in two days at Nationals and making the final, Lakewood can probably find a little extra motivation in being dropped.

     Another thing that stands out is that they also decided to move Kent ahead of DSHA, up to #6.  Kent has never beaten DSHA and finished 5^th in the tournament.  Perhaps they considered that Kent’s only loss came to Lakewood in the semis, 34-26.  Lakewood was winning that match 34-12 well into the second half.  That’s the hard part about comparing only final score lines.  A lot of factors go into scores, including substitutions when you have a big semifinal coming up later the same day.  Now, both teams have been among the best in the country for a decade or more and their rankings could be right; it’s tough to predict.  Still, that’s a hard to take if you finish higher than another team consistently.   They’ll both be wondering how their teams would’ve matched up.  Some good motivation for next year, for sure. 

    It’s also interesting that Summit’s tie with Fallbrook in November was touted by some as a national championship match, instead of a pre-season warm-up game for Fallbrook.  Summitt finished #2  without playing any other teams ranked in the top twenty or ever having defeated DSHA.  Summitt was at the height of their fall season when this match happened, coming off a great state championship run where they were hardly scored on.  Fallbrook played them at the very beginning of a season where they were admittedly rebuilding.  It would’ve been interested to see how the teams matched up after Fallbrook had a season of coaching under their belt, especially as it is clear Summitt is a good program and worthy of high recognition.

     This also has us considering the weight, or lack of weight given to an event like the National Championship Invitational.  Competing teams face three of the most challenging games possible in two days.  Some states have a challenging championship and perhaps semifinals.  They don’t involve this many tough games in this short a time.  It takes a toll by the 2^nd and then 3^rd games.  It’s tough to compare the level of depth and ability to make it through an event with 8 of the top teams in the country compared to one match on one day.  Now, maybe some really good, worthy teams aren’t able to or don’t choose to compete, but that will always be the case for a variety of reasons.  That's also the case in Indiana where one of their top teams is unable to compete on Sundays and therefore cannot attend Midwest.  Nonetheless, there is no other more challenging tournament for girls rugby than this.  Now, in NCAA basketball and state high ‘power rankings’, if you don’t play top teams, you don’t move up in the rankings.  Our two cents observation.  Hopefully next year, the tournament can be expanded to 16 teams and two divisions, to allow more teams the opportunity to experience this! 

Here’s their top twenty.  What’s yours?  Let the debate begin:

 Send comments and feedback to wisconsingirlsrugby@gmail.com

1 Fallbrook (Cal)

2 Summit High School (CO)

3 Fullerton (Cal)

4 Lakewood (OH)

5 Mother Lode (Cal)

6 Kent (WA)

7 Divine Savior Holy Angels High School (WI)

8 Lady Barbarians (ORE)

9 Catholic Memorial High School (WI)

10 Bishop O’Dowd (Cal)

11 Warriors (Utah)

12 Downingtown(Pa)

13 West Carroll (MD)

14 Lowland(Utah)

15 Seigel (Tenn)

16 Armstrong (Minn)

17 St Joseph’s Academy (OH)

18 Hopkins (Minn)

19 Canby (Ore)

20 Amazons (Cal)

Conference Meeting June 6th

The Wisconsin High School Girls Rugby conference will hold its bi-annual conference coaches meeting on Wednesday, June 6th at 7pm.  All teams are required to send a representative.  Conference restructuring will surely be on the agenda.

Any new teams that may form or may wish to join the conference must also send a representative.  Please contact WGR at wisconsingirlsrugby@gmail.com for more information.

In other news, Nicolet High School defeated Marquette High School in the boys state championship game Saturday in Cottage Grove.  MUHS defeated Little Chute in the semifinals and Nicolet knocked off Pulaski to advance earlier in the day.  Congrats to all the teams involved.

Wisconsin Boys State Championships

This weekend the Wisconsin Boys High School Rugby Championships take place in Cottage, Grove, Wisconsin near Madison.  Maps, and full info can be found HERE.

The Madison Rugby Complex is located at:  4064 Vilas Rd, Cottage Grove, WI 53527

Here's the full match schedule:

9:00 AM	Plate Bracket Semi's Pitch 1 - Muskego vs. Fond Du Lac (D1) Pitch 2 - Lafollette vs. Bayport (D1) Pitch 3 - Kenosha vs. Appleton (D2) Pitch 4 - Grafton vs. Oconto (D2)
10:00 AM	** Coaches Meeting - Cup Bracket teams **
10:30 AM	Cup Bracket Semi's Pitch 1 - Nicolet vs. Pulaski (D1) Pitch 2 - Marquette vs. Little Chute (D1) Pitch 3 - Whitefish Bay vs. Oshkosh (D2) Pitch 4 - Elkhorn vs. Valley Crusaders (D2)
12:00 PM	Plate Bracket Consolation Pitch 1 - Plate Bracket Consolation (D1) Pitch 2 - Plate Bracket Consolation (D2) Pitch 3 - Madison West vs. Marquette B Exhibition Pitch 4 - Muskego B vs. Middleton Exhibition
1:30 PM	Cup Bracket Consolation Pitch 1 - UW-Milwaukee vs. UW-Madison 7s Exhibition Pitch 2 - Cup Bracket Consolation (D1) Pitch 3 - Cup Bracket Consolation (D2) Pitch 4 - Lafollette/Elkhorn B vs. Tournament Exiles Exhibition
3:00 PM	D-2 State Championship & Plate Bracket Finals Pitch 1 - Championship Final (D2) Pitch 2 - Plate Bracket Final (D1) Pitch 3 - Plate Bracket Final (D2) Pitch 4 - Exhibition
4:30 PM	D-1 State Championship Pitch 1 - Championship Final (D1) Pitch 2 - Exhibition