32nd Annual Rites of Spring Rugby Tournament: Results

I would like to officially welcome the first ever post of a YSC Intern! Intern Ashley plays for Keystone Rugby in Philly. Before playing with Keystone she played for Penn State for five years. Ashley approached me in February about possibly writing for my blog for a few months and so the idea of YSC Interns came about. I appreciate the offer Ashley! Here is Ashley's first blog post:

Last weekend was the 32nd annual Rites of Spring Tournament held in Baltimore, Md. The tourney was open to both men and women’s teams; however, women’s clubs were significantly underrepresented. There were at the very least 15 men’s clubs competing, which were divided into both premier and social divisions. Conversely, there were only 5 women’s teams registered;all in the social division. Two of those five were Division I, the others-Division II.

The women’s teams included Keystone (Philly), Maryland Stingers, Morris (New Jersey), Chesapeake (Baltimore) and Rochester (NY).

Saturday’s round robin set up the matches for Sunday’s semi-finals and final. However both Rochester and Morris decided on Sunday morning to forfeit. With two out of five teams having dropped out, this left even less opportunity for the remaining teams to compete that day.

There were a few men’s teams who also dropped out, but considering they started out with a lot more teams, those who left didn’t hurt or hinder their amount of play nearly as much as they did with the women’s teams.

This left only Keystone, Chesapeake and the Stingers to play for the tourney championship. Keystone was given a “bye” since they were in first place, which left Chesapeake and the Stingers to battle for a spot in the final. The Stingers prevailed against Chesapeake but lost to Keystone in the final.

It was a great shame that there weren’t more women’s teams at the Rites of Spring Tournament. They are a great opportunity to play a lot of rugby, which is why many teams travel hours to be able to participate. They’re also are a great way to fill an often “casual” spring season and provide a great arena in which to actually players can put all they learned in practice to use.

It can’t be said with any certainty whether the lack of women’s teams at the Rites of Spring was an isolated incident or if it’s an ongoing trend among tournaments. I guess I’ll have to wait until the next one and see. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Results

Men's Premier:
1st Place: MD Exiles
2nd Place: PAC B
3rd Place: Richmond Lions

Men's Social:
1st Place: Washington Renegades
2nd Place: Washington Irish
3rd Place: Towson/Drexel

Women's Division:
1st Place: Keystone
2nd Place: MD Stingers
3rd Place: Chesapeake

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