#1 ranked Norwich drops Women’s Rugby in New England Final for Second consecutive year

One year later, same final story line:  For the second consecutive year the Stonehill Women’s Rugby (7-1) team would finish second in New England to Norwich University (8-0-NE).  “This was certainly a tough one to swallow for me,” commented Coach Derek Jenesky “Going in to the game last year I thought Norwich might be the better side, this year, I really thought we were their equal, but in the end we just didn’t have enough to match them.” 

As it was a year ago, an extremely competitive game was turned into a blowout in the final 20 minutes as the Cadets outscored the Purple and Black 15-0 in that final frame.  The first half saw a tight battle for field position with very few long breaks for either team.  Stonehill had most of the territorial edge, and seemed poised to score when Norwich went down a player due to a yellow card, but the score never came.  “I thought that was a huge key,” added Jenesky, “with Norwich missing their flyhalf, for ten minutes, I really thought that was an opportunity to take a lead heading into halftime and we just never capitalized.” 

The second half kicked off tied at 0-0 and it did not take Norwich long to break through as scores 5 and 12 minutes in gave the #1 nationally ranked team a 12-0 lead.  The ensuing kickoff was re-possessed by Stonehill and a couple of nice backline moves led to Junior Shannon Clancy touching down just minutes after the Norwich score to put the ladies back into the game.  Senior Laura Fischer converted the score and with 25 minutes to play the lead was only 12-7.  That would be as close as the ladies would get,  as poor tackling and multiple penalties would cost them down the stretch and the cadets would stretch the lead scoring with 15, 8, and in injury time for the final score of 27-7 final.

The ladies next game with be a Northeast regional quarterfinal home match-up with Fredonia State on Saturday 11/6, time is TBD.  This will be a re-match of last year’s Regional quarterfinal won by Stonehill 47-15.