Albany Women Win Season Opener

Albany vs. Village Lions
Randalls Island, NYC

11/14/10 2:00 pm  kick-off
Albany 26 - Village Lions 10
April 2, 2011

 The women opened their 2011 spring season on the road in NYC against the Village Lions. The Lions are familiar opponent of ours , particularly in the play-offs and our matches have always been closely contested, so we knew to expect a tough match. Since this was our first time playing rugby since November and we knew we would be a little rusty, our goals on the day were to play hard and to focus on the fundamentals.
Despite the typical early season dropped passes and sloppy set pieces, the team was able to move the ball well and did a god job of retaining position in the breakdowns.

Scoring for the day started early with a JoAnne Kos try and conversion at the 5 minute mark. Good ball movement through the back-line enable the team to stretch the Lions defense and JoAnne cut back inside for another try and conversion. The score was 14-0 at 12 minutes in. The Lions settled in on defense and slowed our ball down and then found a scoring opportunity of their own on the outside, 14-5 Albany. Shortly before the half JoAnne got her hat-trick for the day by scoring another try that she converted. 21-5 at the half.
 In the second half we switched our starting line-up a bit to work people into different positions, both defenses did a better job of containing and so it was 17 minutes into the second before there was another score, this one by the Lions to bring the score to 21-10. Scoring for the a-side ended when Mary Pezzulo scored a try of her own, to make sure the forwards were represented on the scoreboard too.

  Our b-side match against the Lions saw us work in even more of our team for some valuable playing time. The Lions were determined not to drop another match and turned up the pressure. While there was quite a bit of back and forth play, the Lions were able to work through our defense on 3 separate occasions. Final score: 17-0, Lions.
Congratulations goes out to Jessie Muhic and Heather Pierre who played their first game of rugby that day.

Scoring summary: JoAnne Kos 3 tries, 3 conversions; Mary Pezzulo 1 try

Village Lions: Mary Pezzulo, JoAnne Kos