Women’s rugby has good tools to rebuild

Sarah Palermo Sports Editor

Coach Tony Brown is not one to fall into a cliché unknowingly. He is fully aware that by calling 2005 a “rebuilding year,” he is eliding many details of the women’s rugby team’s hopes for the season. But at the same time, he can’t speak of this season without nostalgia for the past four years.
“We graduated half our team,” Brown said. “They went to two national championships and spent four years in the playoffs together.”
Of course, Brown is talking about the 16 dynamic women’s players who graduated last spring under the spectacular leadership of captains Emily Dorman ’05 and Sari Warren ’05. This year is indeed a rebuilding year—luckily, Brown is pretty excited about the materials he has to construct a new dynasty.
“We have a really great freshman this year, with experience under her belt. She’s fitting in nicely with the team” he said, referring to Danielle Goodman-Levy ’09 of Berkeley, CA, playing loosehead prop for the Brewers. Goodman-Levy played other positions for three years at Berkeley High School.
Brown also points to the older experienced players as instrumental in the reconstruction. Having strong leaders is especially important for the Brewer’s this year, as they have also lost their former assistant coach Mark Griffths, who is staying in the UK to continue his own studies.
“Without [Griffiths],” Brown said, “the players have more responsibility. The new players have to learn, and the more experienced players have to help teach them. I would expect all junior and senior players to do that—they do it every year—but it’s more important now.”
Captain Sarah Griffin ’06 has been side-lined since last spring because of surgery, but she will be back in action by October, according to Brown.
Brown calls Griffin’s official co-captain, Allison Gaffney ’06, “calm and organized,” but he is equally impressed with Anna Markowski ’07. “Anna really leads the others by example,” Brown said.
With strong new players, and returners like first-team All-American Gaffney and second-team All-American Danika Oriol-Morway ’07, the Brewers first step toward rebuilding was in the right direction. The team opened their season well, shutting out Southern Connecticut State University 32-0.
Brown acknowledges that the beginning of the Brewers’ schedule is tough, playing Dartmouth, one of the best teams in the Northeast, in this coming week. The team recently beat UMass, another strong opponent, 46-5.
Tours abroad, playing against rugby teams in countries where the game is played on a higher profile, help teams bond, and thus become better on the field. With this goal in mind, the team will visit England and France in the spring with the men’s squad, bringing a total of 47 players abroad for 17 days.
Looking ahead to the rest of the fall season, Brown said, “We want to do as best as possible: We want to win the Northeast.”
While he claims that it is too early to tell how the team will come together, and success depends on how the players develop, Brown remind everyone of Vassar’s rugby tradition, and maintain the team’s position in the top four or five teams in the Northeast.