There is an IU team headed to the Final Four — and it’s not basketball. For the first time in school history, the IU women’s rugby team advanced to the Final Four after beating Northern Iowa in the quarterfinals Nov. 16.
The club sport team left Thursday for Palm Coast, Fla., where the games will be played over the weekend. The Hoosiers are 9-1 and will be facing national powers and varsity programs from Penn State, Norwich and Quinnipiac.
“We are really excited, this is the first time this program has made it this far,” IU Coach Vaughn Mitchell said. “It’s super exciting. We’re excited to play the best teams in the country.”
Last year, there were two separate leagues for women’s rugby with a championship played in the fall and in the spring. Now teams can enter whenever it fits best for their team, allowing schools like IU to play in the fall when the weather is better.
Norwich, who will face IU at 3 p.m. Saturday, is the defending fall champion, while Penn State is the defending spring champion. Penn State gave the Hoosiers their only loss this season.
“We’ve never looked at it like we are the underdogs,” Mitchell said. “We know we can compete with the best. Other people may think we’re the underdog because we’ve never made it this far, but these girls know they can play with the best.”
Fifth-year senior Masie Duncan says she couldn’t picture a better ending to her college career than with a national championship.
“We’ve worked really hard both on the field and off the field,” Duncan said. “We are a club team; we are student-run. We’ve worked really, really hard for this.”
Despite the continued challenge of playing varsity teams that receive school funding, Duncan says her team is ready for the challenge.
“We are going in knowing these teams have more privileges than us,” Duncan said. “We’re just not going to let that get into our heads. We have used the underdog term to fuel our fire.”
The club sport has been at IU since 1996 but has never gone past the round of 16. The team pays for travel and had to fundraise to be able to make the trip.
“We’re very close together, and we feel more like a family,” Duncan said. “I think that’s what makes it so special this year.”
The players give a lot of credit to Mitchell for turning the program around in the 10 years he has been the coach, saying they wouldn’t be where they are today without him.
Mitchell says he believes women’s rugby will soon become a varsity sport at IU.
“There’s a good chance — the sport has grown so much,” he said. “We are almost a varsity team based on the way we train, the way we practice and the way we do offseason conditioning.”
However, for now they are still at the club level, which is giving the players a bit of a boost going into the final weekend.
“I think it is lighting a fire under our feet to prove that not having all the advantages like the other teams do doesn’t mean we don’t work hard,” senior Alli Hale said. “This team wants it.”
Senior leadership has also been important to the team’s success.
“(The seniors) put a big emphasis on counting on each other and playing not only for yourself but playing for the teammate beside you,” sophomore Gabie Mahlmann said. “It’s really made us stronger on and off the field and allowed us to be more confident in our plays.”
In order to win the school’s first national championship, the Hoosiers will have to get by Norwich and then play the winner of Penn State and Quinnipiac.
“The key to a win against Norwich is to stay aggressive,” Mitchell said. “They’re a very big team and very fast on the outside.”
The games will be streamed on usarugbytv.com and updates will be on the team’s Twitter account throughout the weekend.
“We just have to come out and play hard,” Hale said. “We can’t let them get into our heads.”
