September 25, 2016
Penn State Women’s Rugby Races By Rutgers
Photos: Penn State Rugby and Rutgers Women’s Rugby
Doug Coil
On Saturday September 24th, Penn State Women’s Rugby welcomed Rutgers to the Big Ten Women’s Rugby Conference with a 89-5 win. The match will be a bench mark for Rutgers to measure their progress. There will be more competitive league matches this season for Rutgers.
Penn State took advantage of a penalty on Rutgers for a high tackle, when Gabby Cantorna took a quick tap and offloaded to Tess Feury for a try and a 5-0 lead. The lead became 12-0 after Kyla Chipman picked up the ball from a 5 meter scrum and went in for a try. Rachel Campbell then turned the ball over from Rutgers and the ball was swung wide to Katie O’Hare for a try.
The fourth Nittany Lion try came after two breaks, one by Kira Garnett who offloaded to Fallon Joseph and then by Rachel Campbell who offloaded to Ellie Fromstein to Armanda Berta for a try. The lead was now 24-0.
The lead increased to 31-0 when Az Nalbandian found a gap in the defense and offloaded to Maggie Carly for the fifth try. Soon after Katie O’Hare added a sixth. A seventh resulted from a Cantorna kick for territory that was chased down. The eighth try prior to halftime, was started by an Az Nalbandian break who then offloaded to Kyla Chipman and back to Nalbandian for a try. At halftime it was 48-0 to Penn State.
Penn State added another try to begin the second half as Maggie Carly found a gap and offloaded to Maddie McCormick for a try, which was then converted by Cantorna for a 55-0 lead.
Finally, it was Rutgers turn to add points. Rutgers #8 picked up the ball after a scrum and the ball went wide for a try by Shai Hodges. It would be the only score from the Scarlet Knights of the match.
Penn State would add another seven tries after this with doubles by Katie O’Hare, Tess Feury, and Gianna Solomon, while Katie Sayer had her first try.
Ken Pape, Rutgers Head Coach said “Penn state is a well coached team, and worked well through multiple phases. I think we did well in set pieces winning 11 of 12 of our own scrums, and winning 3 of 9 of their scrums. we won 7 of 9 of our own lineups and most times had them off balance in the lineout.”
Rutgers #8 Tasha Hodges and #10 Kelly Dronne we’re players of the game, while Penn State Women of the Match were Az Baldandian and Katie O’Hare.
Ken Pape added “We had a lot of positive take aways from the game and look forward to working on them this week and preparing for a a side coming off a big win against Ohio State.”
Penn State will have a busy weekend next week, as they host Ohio State in a Big Ten match Friday night September 30th and then play Life University on Saturday. The following weekend then then travel to Rutgers and then play Army the next day.
Next Sunday, Rutgers will host Michigan and in two weeks they can measure their progress when Penn State travels to play Rutgers.
