Cal Maritime enjoys strong start to preseason schedule

By: Sean Lindersmith

VALLEJO, Calif. - Cal Maritime Women's Rugby traveled to the UC Santa Cruz this past weekend to play in a rugby sevens event, run by the West Coast Women's Rugby Conference, which allowed teams to gain preseason experience before conference play starts in late January. 

Our women's team have been working steadily growing our skills and game knowledge in the past two months and traveled with 10 players who all earned valuable minutes across three matches against San José State, St. Mary's, and Nevada. Everyone executed the concepts and skills we have been working on at practice to play against live competition. 

Although we felt a lot nerves going into the event, over the day we grew in confidence and put together periods of great rugby. The conference commissioner even came to speak to our team and praised it for doing the work on and off of the field to reach the potential that our program, and school, can achieve.

We will grow by another 2-4 players in the coming weeks with the recruiting efforts the team invested.

The next event for the women's team is another rugby sevens event at Stanford on Saturday, November 9th. 

This upcoming weekend, we shift gears to a preseason rugby 10s event for our men's team at a tournament also held at Stanford on Saturday, November 2nd. Games versus UC Santa Cruz, San Francisco State and Cal Poly (2nd team) in pool play will help our newer players gain experience playing alongside schools we will face in our conference starting in late January.