West Chester University Women's Rugby Team Wins 2019 National Championship

Guest Author, Juah Toe, Tri -Captain West Chester Women's Rugby Team

In the past three years, I’ve learned how to play rugby, played in my first game, became a starter, captain, All-American, and eventually a National Champion.

Who would’ve thought that in three and a half years, I’d be where I am today? Definitely not 18 year old Juah!

To say you are a National Champion is the most incredible feeling in the world.

People congratulating you everywhere you go, even if they know nothing about rugby! After years of dedication to the sport, all the pieces fell into place.

This was the season of making history.

At the beginning of the season, the coaches from all the teams ranked us 5th out of  seven teams in the conference. This made us angry from the start.

We set goals and wanted to prove we are better than all those teams who thought less of us.

And we did.

We came out on top and made school history every time we stepped onto the field.

Imagine being down 14 to 0 at halftime after not performing your best as a team the first half?

We know ourselves to be a second half team but in the biggest game of our careers, is this how we want to go into the second half?

What do you say in the team huddle as captain or a coach? Well I’ll tell you what was said.

My coach enters the team huddle and says, “what are we doing?” in a calm demeanor. He continues to tell us that we have studied, prepared, and worked for this moment.

He recognized that we are a second half team so instead of yelling or trying to make us feel bad about the first half he turns to us three captains and says, “ do whatever you need to do and say whatever you need to say for us to turn this game back around.”

And with that the team huddle closed without any coaches and we all spoke to each other.

We listened to those who recognized their own and the team’s mistakes.

To top it off the captains spoke about how far we’ve come and how we know we can play better than what we did in the first half.

My co-captain, Haley Spangler, said “we know we are better than this.

And we know that when we score once, we score four times.” and to close it all up, I said, “we came too far to only come this far. We know what we need to do, so let’s do it.” For our cheer I told the team we would do a big West Chester on three and a whisper finish. 

We take our place back on the field, and once again, we make history.