ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y. — Now it gets real.
After a season of outlandishly lopsided victories, the St. Bonaventure women’s rugby team — 5-0 and ranked No. 2 in the National Collegiate Rugby small-college poll — can set its sights on one immediate goal: winning the league title that eluded them last fall.
The Bonnies can take the first step when they host No. 18 Oswego (3-1) at 5 p.m. Sunday in the semifinals of the Upstate New York Women’s Collegiate Rugby Conference tournament. Cortland (4-0), which defeated SBU in the league title game last October, plays Niagara (4-1) in the other semifinal.
The conference winner will earn an automatic bid to the regional brackets of the NCR Small College national tournament in November. The title-game loser could earn an at-large bid, which the Bonnies did last fall.
Meredith Pyke, the Bonnies’ second-year head coach, said she’s been impressed with how her team has stayed focused during a season in which they outscored their opponents, 402-5. Among them was a 79-0 win last Friday over previously unbeaten Niagara for the West Division title, a match she fully expected to be much closer.
“When there’s a big disparity in skill level you can get a little bit lazy and not play your game. We’ve had a lot of situations like that where it could have been an issue,” Pyke said. “But they have risen to the challenge and done a really good job of staying intense and focused.”
Pyke attributes that focus to a core of leaders the rest of the team respects.
“Makenna (Ramsey) stopped everyone at the beginning of practice yesterday and said, ‘Hey, at this point in the season, if we lose, we’re done. No one wants that to happen, so we cannot get lazy or cocky,’” Pyke said. “That’s huge. At this point in the season, they know what I’m going to say, so I can attribute a lot of our success to the great student leadership we have.”
Seniors Kaylee Middaugh and Abby Beres are the Bonnies’ captains, and junior Ashlee Reid and Ramsey, a graduate student, are house (or assistant) captains.
“The message is very consistent from the top down. I have leaders at every (class) level,” Pyke said. “Something that makes my job easy here is that our athletes are motivated and want to win and, for the most part, know what it takes and are willing to put in the effort.”
Ramsey, a 2022 NCR All-American, will return next season because an additional year of eligibility was granted to athletes as a result of the pandemic.
“Makenna brings an intensity to the game that’s just fantastic,” Pyke said. “To know her and then to watch her play, you don’t think it’s the same person. A lot of players look up to her whether she realizes it or not.”
Pyke, however, is quick to dismiss the notion that the Bonnies are a one-person team.
“When I watched the game again, what was really cool is that I heard them talking about a lot of other players,” Pyke said. “About Kaylee Vincent and Middaugh and Ashlee, and Kyla (Nentarz) and Jaylei (Wagstaff) and Jillian (Rea). They know we have a lot of talent.”
After a rookie coaching year trying to build the culture off the field, Pyke said this year’s club has impressed her by building chemistry on the field.
“We’re starting to put our aces in their places. Our rugby IQ has increased tremendously since last year so they have more self-confidence in their game,” Pyke said. “The message I’m now hearing is that everyone feels like a contributing member.”
