For the first time this season, women’s rugby hosted a tournament on Sweeney Field, bringing its 2024 fall season to a close Nov. 9. This year is the first time in two years the club has been able to field a team.
The team claimed its first victory of the season in the first game of the tournament, a 22-15 win over the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. While the team lost the following two games against the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel, Bailey Kearns ’28 said that initial win was still extremely rewarding.
“We really wanted to win at least one game during our season, since we’ve only been playing for a couple months. The fact that we won our first game today on our own field is awesome,” Kearns said after the tournament.
It shows how far women’s rugby has come since they were last able to field a team in fall 2022. The team did not play in spring 2023, and their previous head coach was deployed in fall 2023. Current captains Brianna Kelly ’26 and Tess Margis ’26 stepped up, leading practices and managing the team of about five players.
But their limited coaching and fieldwork experience on top of classes made it difficult to continue running the team, Kelly said. She and Margis ran the team for two weeks before making the difficult decision to put it on pause. Once the news was in that there was a new coach for the spring 2024 semester, the balance between athletics and academics became manageable.
“Once everything started falling into place, I swear I felt like I was dreaming, in a way. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s actually happening. I’m so happy,’” Kelly said. “At that point, I was able to actually enjoy rugby for what it is and not worry about what’s going on. Now I’m able to have the team and enjoy their company, enjoy the tournaments and enjoy playing it instead of worry about what’s happening next with the team.”
Head coach Greg Ebersole joined in January 2024. Since then, the handful of girls who are on the team have been consistently conditioning and recruiting potential players.
Now, the team is up to 20 players, with the majority having no prior experience. For this fall season, the goal was simply to learn the game of rugby and to get better, Ebersole said.
“We’ve learned it pretty quickly, and it’s just a matter of do[ing] a lot of off-season conditioning,” Ebersole said.
This season, the team played rugby sevens because Ebersole wasn’t sure the team would be large enough to play 15s, he said. Moving forward, Ebersole said he wants to recruit as many players as possible, with a focus on recruiting high school athletes.
“I’m going to go from a team right now that 75% of the players never played rugby before starting two months ago, and hopefully by the fall [2025], I’ll have three quarters of a team that played rugby for four years in high school,” Ebserole said.
After two successful months with the team, Ebersole is hopeful for the future and is set on elevating the team going forward.
“I’m really impressed by their heart, the effort that they put in. They’re really quality people. I can’t wait till next season. We’re just going to get way better,” Ebersole said.
Kearns said she’s loved seeing how everyone’s skills align, allowing them to mesh well during games.
“Each of our skills differ from one another,” Kearns said. “One may be faster than the other, one has better hands, so when we have our starting formation, it’s wonderful to see how we all come together.”
With a full team, Ebersole sees the determination to improve and the leadership exemplified by the players.
“You’ll see a lot of successful people in life that played rugby. It’s one of those sports that people get into leadership positions,” Ebersole said. “I have a lot of strong women on my team that are going to go on to be successful professionals. It’s really good to see them put their heart into it. I see myself growing the program with the help of the captains I have now.”
Transitioning into the winter season, Ebersole and Kelly said the team has a commitment to conditioning together to build and maintain stamina for back-to-back matches in the spring.
“We want to wear the SJU colors with pride and be like, ‘Yeah, we’re here to win,’” Kelly said.
Tess Margis ’26 is a features reporter on The Hawk.
