National Champions!!

This year Women’s Division II was officially recognized under USA Rugby for the first time, with USA Rugby hosting the DII National Playoffs at the same time as the Premier League and Division I National Playoffs. Which is why it was even more exciting and significant that the Albany Knicks Women’s Rugby team won our first National Championship in our ten year history. And we got to go home with shiny gold medals and a big shiny trophy! Below is the press release for the weekend written by our amazing coach Lori Staples :-)

Albany Knickerbockers RFC Women win
2010 USA Rugby Division II National Championship

Mesa, Arizona, November 14th, 2010 -
The Albany Knickerbockers Rugby Football Club is proud to announce that their Women’s team won USA Rugby’s inaugural Division II National Championship Tournament, held in Mesa, Arizona November 12th – 14th. The Women defeated strong sides from Severn, Maryland and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and finally clinched the National Title by beating a young powerhouse team from Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Women’s team brings home the title in a fitting tribute to their 10th anniversary as a part of the Knickerbockers organization.

This is the Albany Women’s second National Championship Finals appearance, having succumbed to a team from Raleigh, North Carolina in 2006. Arriving in Arizona with a full travelling squad of 24, the Women first took on Severn River (Mid-Atlantic # 2 seed), scoring almost immediately and controlling the match while making good use of strong substitutes. The team went on to win the game by a commanding 41 – 5 margin, with tries scored by Kristin Bonomo and Rachel Start of Albany, JoAnne Kos of Troy and 15 yr old Jenna Watson of Coxsackie.

The semifinal proved to be a re-match of a game Albany lost to Pittsburgh (Midwest # 1 seed) during the 2009 Invitational Tournament in Houston, Texas. This year, the Albany Women scored quickly with another JoAnne Kos try, but the score remained at 5 – 0 for much of the first half. Ruth Robertson of Albany added another try which Kos converted, bringing the score to 12 – 0 at the half. The second half saw strong Pittsburgh offense, but Albany countered with tries by Alicia Backus and Willow Eyres of Albany, ending the match at 22 – 0.

The Women arrived for the final match on November 14th with plenty of nervous energy, and the game started slowly for Albany with Albuquerque scoring first. The first half saw a lot of back and forth play with both teams making pushes into the other’s territory, but Albany was able to cross the try zone twice in the last five minutes of the half, as Kate Fuller of Pittsfield, Massachusetts and Ruth Robertson breached Albuquerque’s defense to bring the score to 17 – 10. The second half of the final match started well for Albany as JoAnne Kos scored again but Albuquerque quickly countered with a try of their own. The final 10 minutes saw one more Albuquerque try, and additional Albany tries from Willow Eyres and Beth Fairall of Albany. It was 34 – 22 at the final whistle and the Albany Women were excited and proud to have won the USA Rugby Division II National Championship!

The Knickerbockers also congratulate JoAnne Kos on winning the 2010 Tournament MVP award.

Albany Crossfit gets a new look!

The last couple weeks big things have been happening at Albany Crossfit. We recently acquired a 4th room (we’re slowly taking over all of the Court Clubs racquetball courts), and instead of leaving it as a separate room, our beloved leaders, in their infinite wisdom, decided to combine it with our 3rd room to make a new, bigger workout space. So the power tools came out, the wall came down, and amid the cloud of dust and the noise of construction, the transformation began. Over this last weekend Albany Crossfit closed it’s doors to finish construction, and in the place of their usual WODs, our athletes and trainers came in and dedicated their time to building, painting, cleaning and organizing.

I myself was very honored to have the job of painting the ACF logo on the new back wall – which also meant I got to use the awesome automatic lifts we got this time instead of the ladder, woo! In the process of painting the logo and helping out around the gym, I realized just how proud I was to be able to be a part of Albany Crossfit and this important new addition. I joined the ACF ranks almost a year ago when there were only 2 rooms, I helped with the 3rd room when we got it, and here I was, watching ACF grow yet again, and this time with a beautiful new WOD room and a whole new, sharp and professional paint scheme in the hallways.

The best part for me though – realizing that while our space and overall look may change, the people are still the same. The community that makes Albany Crossfit what it is has stayed strong, and new upgrades are only going to enhance it by giving us more resources that will help us become better athletes. There’s going to be more opportunity to push ourselves and in turn, to push and encourage each other. On Thursday we got to hit our first WOD in the new room – a welcome-back-to-crossfit, brutal 25 min AMRAP. It was awesome to be able to have 16 athletes working out in one room at once, and it as just as awesome to have my fellow crossfitter next to me keeping me on track. It’s great to have the new space and see the other two rooms re-arranged to get the best use out of our equipment, and I am definitely looking forward to what other exciting things the future holds for Albany Crossfit. Not to mention, hitting a muscle-up on those cool new rings in our WOD room…. :-)

Ready or not, here we come!

The fall rugby season is upon us, and for club side rugby teams like the Albany Knicks that means one thing – Nationals. Everything we do in the off-season, the spring season, the summer Seven’s season, all builds up to the fall season – full 80-minute regular season games pave the road to the NRU playoffs, where only the top 2 northeast teams will earn the right to travel to club National playoffs and fight for the title of best rugby team in the nation. Last year Albany “messed with Texas” and came in 3rd at Division 2 Nationals in Houston, TX. This year, with one of our best competitors moved out of our division, we have our sites set on taking Arizona by storm and claiming the National Championship for ourselves.

Well, so far so good, we’re off to a solid start and definitely on the right track. Our first game was against Hartford – always long, hard, well-fought games which have resulted in us managing to squeeze out each win by only one try. We knew not to underestimate this team, so we came into the game expecting a close battle. Well there’s definitely something different about the Albany team this year, our pack is tighter and stronger, our scrums are solid, our line-outs are solid, our backs are faster, there’s more synergy and flow… All the pieces fell into place and we ended up soundly defeating Hartford by a blow-out score of 42-0. Way to go team!

Reset. Next game was this Saturday against Worcester, and we couldn’t let our big win against Hartford make us cocky, anything can happen in rugby. Well this time our scrums were even better than last game and our line was even faster, we had a short field and our team took full advantage of it at every opportunity. We had scores from multiple girls and our flyhalf made all 7 of her conversion kicks. Worcester managed to squeak in a try near the end, but Albany dominated the game, winning 66-5.

So that’s 2 down, 3 to go – Seacoast, Portland and Burlington. I’ve always had confidence in our team, but this year, I know THIS is the team that’s gonna go all the way, THIS is our season. We’re gonna take the northeast and then we’re gonna take the nation! Ready or not, here we come!

2009 National Playoffs in Houston, TX