Youth Tag Rugby

Now on it's third year, the City of Waukesha is offering a co-ed tag rugby clinic for children in grades 1st through 8th grade. Last year, the program had a lot of returning players, and the progress from year to year has been great to watch.

If you know anyone who wants to play, you can register through the City of Waukesha website. If you want to volunteer, contact me or just show up! It's a lot of fun.

Program Details:

Schedule - Friday, 5:30-6:30, June 12th to July 24th (off July 3rd)
Location - Mindiola Park in Waukesha
Groups - 1st-2nd, 3rd-4th, 5th-6th, & 7th-8th
Tag rugby is co-ed for all groups

$54 for residents and $74 for non-residents
All registered participants will receive a t-shirt and rugby ball

To register go to: http://wprf-recware-online.ci.waukesha.wi.us/registrationmain.sdi and select Mindiola Park under Location to quickly find Tag Rugby.

Scores (last week + Round 1 Midwest)

This past week, Muskego defeated Pius 39-5 and KM defeated Brookfield in a mixed A/B-side scrimmage.

Today, down at Midwest, our two Wisconsin teams (DSHA and CMHS) competed in the quarter-final and semi-final matches in hopes of making the Midwest Cup final a repeat of the Fall 2009 Wisconsin state championship. However, the much anticipated re-match between DSHA and CMHS was not to be after CMHS fell in the semi-final match to Lakewood, a perennial player in the Midwest Tournament. In a heart breaking match up, CMHS led in its quarter final match 7-5 with only ten minutes remaining, before Lakewood rallied to defeat CMHS 7-17. CMHS will go on to play for the third place match against Lakeview.

DSHA will again compete for the Cup, facing Lakewood in the finals tomorrow.

When I have some time -- I'll look up what states Lakeview and Lakewood are from. Also, no scores were reported for Vernon in the Festival division, but I hope they had a good day of it.

The scores that were reported to me are:

Quarterfinals:
CMHS 33 Noblesville 5
DSHA 35 Brownsburg 5


Semifinal:
CMHS 7 Lakewood 17
DSHA 20 over Lakeview 0

Final:
CMHS v Lakewood

3rd Place Match:
CMHS v Lakeview

May 2-3 Preview

This weekend is a big weekend for Wisconsin U19 Girls Rugby. Obviously, the big show for the weekend takes place in Carmel Indiana at the Midwest Girls Rugby Tournament. Click here for a link to the official brackets. DSHA (WI #1) and CMHS (WI #2) will compete in the cup bracket, with hopes of bringing home the Midwest Cup to Wisconsin soil once again. Vernon (WI #3) will be representing Wisconsin in the Festival division.

Last fall, DSHA earned the top spot after defeating CMHS is a narrow, nail-biting 5-0 victory. Vernon secured it's 3rd place standing with a 24-7 win over Brookfield in the Fall 2008 conference. The complete play-off brackets from the Fall 2009 season are available here.

Meanwhile, KM has organized the MN-WI Border battle, which will pit top teams from Minnesotta High School Girls Rugby Union (Wayzatta, Armstrong and Orono) against Kettle Moraine, Brookfield, Fond du Lac, Oak Creek, with a guest appearance from Rockford Il. This is a great opportunity to see some diverse competition up in Mauston, WI. Thanks to Noe, KM's coach, for all his efforts putting this together!

Good Luck everybody as we take on out-of-state competition!

Founders' Cup

CMHS retained the Founders' Cup by putting up 31 unanswered points before the game was called due to the stormy weather. CMHS closes out the 2009-2010 season having overcome Brookfield three times to retain the cup in advance of their Midwest run next weekend. The match opened with excellent tactical kicking by both teams. However, CMHS forced Brookfield to defend its try zone for twenty minutes before finally pushing through the opening try of the match. CMHS broke through with a second try as the whistle blew to close the first half with a score of 13-0.

While Brookfield made several incursions into CMHS territory, the CMHS forwards continually forced the turn over and place Brookfield on their heels. With a well discipline attack, CMHS put three more tries on the board, early in the second half before thunder called the game with the final score 31-0.

Good luck to CMHS and DSHA as they travel to Indiana to play in the Midwest Championship Tournament! And Good luck to Vernon as it travels to Indiana to play in the Midwest open tournament!

p.s. It's true, CMHS did not kidnap the pig. Rather, CMHS player's helped return the wayward pig from Iowa after it was lost by a BBRFC player. Although-- the text message was a little ominous.

Founders' Cup Preview

The Brookfield Bruisers RFC (BBRFC) were saddened at the loss of Mr. Pig, the stuffed animal of senior wing Beth F., who originally believed that Mr. Pig was left behind in the hotel after the Iowa tournament. However, late yesterday afternoon, the senior wing received a disturbing text message which read "we've got Mr. Pig -- and if you don't want him to become bacon, I wouldn't go scoring any tries on Saturday."

The BBRFC front office staff released this comment in response to the text message: "We are disturbed that, evidently, Mr. Pig is in the hands of CMHRFC and that they are using Mr. Pig as a means of intimidating our wing, who scored a hat trick of tries last weekend. We intend to take this matter before the arbitration panel to pursue recovery of the pig."

CMHRFC officials have denied that that the arbitration panel has jurisdiction over the alleged kid-napping of Mr. Pig. CMHS officials noted that the arbitration clause was clearly intended to resolve disputes regarding the Founders' Cup and cannot be used to
recover the allegedly kidnapped pig. BBRFC officials noted that "when CMHRFC attempted to use Mr. Pig as a means of intimidating our players in advance of this weekend's Founders' Cup match, they brought the dispute within the scope of the arbitration clause of the Irishfest Accords of 2008."

In a speech to the BBRFC players, Coach Dan "William Wallace" Chanen noted that "they may take our pig, but they cannot keep our trophy."

The Founders' Cup match is set to be played at 10:00 a.m. at Minooka Park in Waukesha, this coming Saturday.

April 18-19 Score Reports

Wisconsin Action:

Kettle Moraine 40 - Pius 5
Muskego 62 - Oak Crekk 0
Vernon 70 - Fond du Lac 0

Iowa Festival:
CMHS 22 - Hopkins 0
CMHS 53 - Edina 0
CMHS 34 - Orono 5

Brookfield 62 - Edina 0
Brookfield 10- Orono 0
Brookfield 0 - Hopkins 5

Lot's of rugby was played last weekend -- with CMHS and Brookfield traveling to Iowa to participate in the Des Monies Rugby Festival. The festival was a great opportunity to play competitive teams from around the Midwest in a non-tournament format. It was great to play against some very competitive and classy competition.

I have to give special kudos to the Kansas City Dragons who, after borrowing a player from Brookfield to fill out their team at the Des Moines Festival, gifted the player a pair of brilliant orange socks for her efforts.

Muskego's New Home on the Web

Muskego RFC has a new website. Always nice to get information right from the club.