SUNY Oswego’s women’s rugby revamps program
OSWEGO, N.Y. — The women’s rugby team moved up from Division 3 to Division 2 in 2014. Since then, the team has struggled to keep up with the more competitive division. Sarah Haber, one of the team’s captains, says the new division brings more challenges than they expected.
“When we were playing in D3 we were undefeated so they decided to move us up to a harder division, and it was a big wakeup call. It was definitely a lot harder than D3,” Haber said.
This year, the team has made the decision to completely re-do their program. With new practice drills, game strategies, and team leaders, they plan on turning up the heat this season and giving the other D2 schools a run for their money. Haber discusses how new members are being trained from the basics to improve techniques,
“Specifically, what we’ve been doing with the new members of the team, we’re breaking it down to the basics,” Haber said. “And we found that that’s really been working because the techniques and the fine-tuning of these skills is really shown an improvement that we’ve seen since this year and last year.”
Aside from their bonding time on the field, President Emily Stastko says this year the team has been focusing on off-field bonding activities, hoping to create a close-knit family.
“On Fridays all the girls on the team come over to our house and we all have dinner together, so it’s a really good time by the end of the week everyone always has a crazy week, we’re super busy on and off the field, so it’s just a good time for everyone to get together, have dinner, talk strategy, about the game the day after”, Emily said.
The last home game will be on October 15th at 1pm at the Hidden Fields where these ladies will put all their new skills to the test.