This year the women’s rugby team, also known as the Dirty Ducks, is looking to build off of its success from last.year when it finished with a perfect 9-0 regular season, including 4-0 in league play.
Despite its perfect regular season, UC Berkeley and eventual national champion Stanford handed the team two losses in the Regional Women’s Collegiate Division I Tournament in Palo Alto, Calif.
This season, the team is looking to once again go undefeated and make it to the Sweet 16 in the National Tournament.
In order to do so the team must once again go through league opponents Oregon State, Western Washington and Reed.
The Pacific Northwest League is adopting a new scheduling format this year in which each league member will play an opponent twice, once at home, once away. Each team will have its own home game against every league member, which is expected to make the games more competitive.
Coach Justin Bergen is hoping that returning seniors Ramey Marshall and All-American Krista Gust, who is also on the under-23 Women’s National Team, provide the leadership that the team needs in order to reach its goals.
Currently the team has 26 members, and is always open to new players, regardless of whether they have any experience.
Bergen describes rugby as “a combination of soccer and football but without pads.” The team, which carries only three seniors, is trying to prepare the crop of young talent to play at a competitive level.
Despite the prevalence of youth on the team, optimism is high.
“We can come together as a team and win,” sophomore Kata Bahnsen-Reinhardt said.
Bergen believes that his team will be able to defeat its opponents because of a few intangibles.
“We’re better conditioned than they are. We need to exploit their weaknesses and to keep running through them,” Bergen said. “We need to run them into the ground.”
The team’s first game will be a friendly scrimmage against Western Oregon on Nov. 5 in Monmouth. The team’s first league game will be a home game against Oregon State on Nov. 19, which, according to Bergen, was the team’s toughest match last year when his team won 36-10.
After that, the club will not have another league game until February. Bergen believes his team will be up for the challenge.
“We have plenty of new faces learning the game, but we’ll be ready,” Bergen said.
There is still an opportunity to join the team. Practices are held Tuesday and Thursday starting at 4 p.m. at Southbank Field The team’s Web site can be accessed though the Oregon Club Sports home page.