Although Rugby is typically a male sport, Ashland University is taking a different route. 

AU’s Women’s Rugby is a club sport that is played year-round and currently hosts about 25 women on the team. 

No experience is required to be on the team, and most women say they play for the fun of the game. 

“The first meeting they teach you the rules,” senior Hillary Falter said. “It’s a learning experience every practice that we go to. So, all of us are still learning, even some of the seniors.” 

Although the sport is recognized by Ashland, the team was recently taken out of their conference, making scheduling difficult. 

Instead of having a set schedule, the team has to call the schools individually to compete against them. Junior captains Jessica Laney and Kelsey Garrabrant have been on the team since their freshman year and are responsible for scheduling the roughly 8 games per semester. 

As her first year on the team, Falter said she joined because it’s her senior year. She decided that joining rugby would broaden her college experience. 

“I just thought that it would be a really good way to expand my horizons,” she said. “I don’t know what hit me this year, but I realized I’m a senior and I need to get myself out there, and I was just thought rugby was the perfect way to do that.” 

Women’s Rugby has games every Saturday on the intramural fields; however, the team does travel for some games. 

This Saturday, they are traveling to Wittenberg and have also been to Akron and Denison. Their current record is 2-1 and four more games are scheduled for this semester. 

“The reason we lost to Akron is because Akron is made up of women who have played at the collegiate level so most of them are actually graduated,” Falter said. “It’s a lot of women who are older and are very experienced. This game was a lot of people’s first game and they were kind of coaching us and helping us and they were a really good resource and they definitely helped us in our game.” 

Senior Kelli Nelson joined the team with Falter and both are experiencing it for the first time. Nelson said she really enjoys the game and likes the aspect of meeting new people.

“I know as a senior, it’s really hard to get to know freshmen,” she said. “We meet a lot of freshmen and it’s nice to be able to travel. Even though it’s really a contact sport, I think we actually befriend people on the other team.” 

Nelson said that she has set some personal goals for the season and although it just started, she has high hopes for meeting them. 

“There are many, many, many rules and they’re really difficult to understand and I’ve even played in two games and it’s still difficult to understand,” she said. “My goal for myself is that I fully learn all the rules and I enjoy playing and I think that everyone else does, too. So my goal is to also get closer as a team. We do team bonding stuff every week, so I feel like we are already close.” 

Falter and Nelson both said that this year, the team is really focusing on the logistics of the game. They said they are putting the dynamics first, especially since so much of the team is new. 

“Last year they needed to focus more on the dynamics of the game, and just the important foundation for tackling and stuff,” Falter said. “So that’s what we’re focusing on this year.”

Practice takes place on the intramural fields every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:30 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. 

If women are interested in playing rugby, the team encourages them to stop by practices and join in the fun.

“Everyone is so happy to see new faces,” Falter said. “The captains of our team are really willing and open to explain the rules to the newer people.”