Rhino Ruggers Rock the House

Women's Rugby Prepares to Crush the Competition

Ah, the illustrious Rhino Ruggers. With a reputation ranging from the hardest partying, fastest chugging women on campus to Oberlin's own lesbian missionaries out to convert any unsuspecting first-years, you'd think we would no longer be one of Oberlin's greatest mysteries. Thus far, only we and our most devoted fans have known the truth. Hopefully this will clear a few things up for any curious minds.

Few know that our team plays year-round. We dedicate our Saturdays to competing against teams from all parts of Ohio. A few of our die-hard players have been practicing since the semester began to prepare for the Sevens in the Snow tournament, hosted by the Eastern Suburbs team outside Cleveland on Feb. 19.

Rugby is usually played with 15 players on each side. As the name implies, "sevens" is played with only seven. Since it is played with the full field, it involves an insane amount of running - so much, in fact, that the halves are only seven minutes long. We tied one and lost two, which isn't too bad, considering that none of our players had ever played sevens and that we had not played a match since November.

The good news kept coming when five rookies joined our ranks and two players returned from a two-year hiatus. Ironically, the two returnees are both named Blair. Keeping with good rugby spirit, we avoid confusion on the field by granting inappropriate nicknames. (Stop some woman who looks like a rugby player sometime to ask how we distinguish our Blairs. Beware of imposters. You could be fooled by a field hockey player, since they will be so flattered that they were mistaken for a rugger that they will make something up.)

On the subject of rests, a couple of our most valuable players are taking a break from rugby this semester. One is our former club president, junior Kate Skillman, whose skills on and off the pitch are sorely missed. Junior Vanya Hollis, the Fall semester's highest scoring player and ray of rugby sunshine, is the other on holiday.

But the team is looking strong and, despite the few days of rotten weather this past week, we are well prepared for our game on Saturday. We expect all fans, old and new, to be out cheering at our 2 p.m. kick-off. Weather is not an excuse. Heck, if we're out there roughing up a team of high school girls you should be glad we're not charging you. If you're still curious about our reputation, you'll just have to come to our game and tag along to the party afterwards to find out the truth.

Sophomore Elizabeth Flinsch is the captain of the women's rugby team.