Mustangs Girls Rumble to Victory in First Annual NYMA Cup

The Saratoga Mustangs Girls notched two more victories en route to winning the championship cup in the inaugraul NYMA Cup Tournament. The tournament was conceived in the late winter through the desire to promote competitive rugby high school rugby between New York and Massachusetts. The Springfield Rifles offered to host the four team girls event, as well as host a game between the Springfield and Saratoga boys in between rounds. With this format set and the hope of expansion in the future, two teams from Saratoga, and one from both Albany-Schenectady-Rennselaer (ASR) and Springfield squared off to determine the first champion among teams who have been in existence for less than two years.
The day began in windy Westfield, MA with another clash between ASR and Saratoga's A Team for the first game in the opening round. Despite ASR's continued development as a first year club, Saratoga's experience and aggressiveness was too much for the young squad. Despite the 20 minute half format of the opening round of tournament play, in only 40 minutes of regulation game play, Saratoga wracked up seven tries on their way to a 39-0 shutout victory. Three tries were scored by freshmen eight man sensation Melayna Weaver (Burnt Hills), two by Celia McKendrick (Burnt Hills), and one a piece by senior Amanda Barletta (Burnt Hills) and freshman Khirstian Carbonello (Burnt Hills). Carbonello and junior Sara McFadden (Burnt Hills) each added conversion kicks. Because of her hard work at converting from fullback to flanker and continued work at developing her kicking, McFadden's successful conversion kick netted her the coaches' decision for Rugger of the Match for the first game.
Saratoga took on Springfield for the first time since the first game they played in team history last spring. It was a much more hotly contested match as Sprinfield was boasting three girls who are current members of the U-19 NRU All-Star team. Behind an ever improving mastery of the offense by senior scrum-half Emily Wexler (Burnt Hills), Saratoga spread the ball around the team and received hard running scores by eightman Eva Meier (Ballston Spa), inside center Joann Pettis (Burnt Hills), and the game capper by Weaver. Saratoga broke out a new offense of scheme for the line and, orchestrated by Pettis and Wexler, managed some clever misdirection. Freshman fullback Khirstian Carbonello (Burnt Hills) added a conversion kick to run the score to 17-0, and at the end of the forty minute game, that is where it stood. Both Saratoga teams had advanced to the second round and improved their records to 7-0 and 6-1, respectively.
Given the format of the tournament, the second round would have had Springfield and Albany square off for the Consolation Match and Saratoga's A Team taking on Saratoga's Super A Team for the Championship Cup Match. This is where the day became interesting because, with VYRA playoffs looming, Saratoga's coaching staff had no desire to risk injury for what amounted to an intrasquad game. With ASR and Springfield nursing injuries, a proposal was made. Saratoga agreed to donate Celia Mckendrick, Khirstian Carbonello, Quennah Holt, and Melayna Weaver (who scored a collective seven tries, which was seven more than ASR and Springfield put together to this point). With the four Mustangs, ASR and Springfield compiled their best possible roster to take on Saratoga in the finals, despite Saratoga essentially forfeiting to itself to win the cup. For this game, Saratoga battled back and forth with the conglomerate. For a side that was comprised with players that had not played together before, the Motley Team pulled themselves together and pulled out all the stops for the first forty minutes. Despite some impressive goal lines stands by Saratoga, eventually, one of the players from Albany was able to punch through and score. With the conversion made, Saratoga trailed for the first time all day, 7-0. With only twenty minutes to play, Saratoga pulled itself together and mounted an attack. In the closing minutes, Saratoga marched down the field twice and put scores on the board. The first came from Emily Wexler. At that point of the day, Saratoga had either given away or lost all three of its kickers, so Wexler was called upon to kick, never having had done it before. A few minutes later, sophomore wing and eventual Rugger of the Match winner Samantha Coluccio (Burnt Hills) thrashed down the sideline and pounded her way into the try zone for the winning score. As time expired, Saratoga's joint Super A and A Team had defeated the collective squad to claim its third victory of the day and officially bring home the first NYMA Cup Tournament Championship.

Up Next for the Super A's: The Saratoga Super A Team (6-1) Hosts Rutland on Wednesday, May 28th @ 6:00 P.M. in the First Round of the VYRA Championship. They will follow it up with either a final consolation or final championship game vs. either Adirondack or Essex in Colchester, VT on Sunday.
Up Next for the A's: The Saratoga A Team (7-0) closes out its season when they host Albany-Schenectady-Rennselaer (ASR) on Friday, May 30th @ 5:00 P.M. and go for an undefeated season.