The UC Davis Women’s Rugby Team was established in the fall of 1997. After playing for a women’s club team in Sacramento, the first president, Suzanne Mooney, decided to bring rugby to college age women. With the coaching help of her friend Brendan, UC Davis Women’s Rugby was born. Some of the UCD men’s team aided the fledgling program by volunteering as forwards coaches, one of which, Jason Pitts, became the head coach in 1998.

During this first season, the team faced many difficulties. The inability to gain access to fields and the small number of girls playing were some of the few hurdles the team had to overcome. Most, if not all, of the girls had never seen a rugby ball before. The league itself only consisted of five teams, four of which had been founded in 1997 as well. Despite the difficulties, UCD Women’s Rugby finished third in the league behind Stanford and Chico, starting two rivalries that would last for years to come.

By the beginning of the 1999 season, the team saw tremendous growth and improvement due in part to word of mouth and the coaching abilities of Jason Pitts and his brother Adrian. The roster went from having enough girls to barely field a side, to having over 50 girls. This allowed for the formation of a second, or B-side. This season, the UCD team finished third again, this time behind Chico State and the national champion, Stanford University. Over the next two years, the club would continue to take third place behind these two league powerhouses.

The 2002 season brought about significant changes for the UC Davis Women’s Rugby team. The departure of Jason Pitts was a segue for a new style of coaching and playing. The team offered the coaching position to Peter McGroarty, a Scottish coach with a lifetime of rugby involvement. Dianne “DT” Terwilliger, a Davis local who was once deeply involved in the American rugby scene, became the new second side coach, instilling her love of rugby to new players. Under the guidance of Peter, DT, and Adrian Pitts, the team would take third place in league and earn its first trip to the playoffs. Although this would not be their year to advance to the Sweet 16 tournament, the players ended their season with bright hopes for the future.

Another year sought the UCD Women's Rugby Team as did they seek a new head coach. Now armed with the a new coaching staff including props Debra Wadford and Tracy Benning of the national champion team, the Berkeley All Blues, as well as D.T. and Adrian Pitts, the team would again reach playoffs. Seeing as many of the 2002 team reached alumnae status the Women's Rugby team was forced to recruit hard, and rebuild quickly. Their efforts were not in vain however, as they fell short of going to Sweet 16 again in 2003, yet placed fourth overall in league.

The 2004 season marks the start of all the hard years the Aggies have spent building the team. Debra Wadford returned as head coach, with Adrian Pitts by her side. B-side forwards coach Mark Busch joined the team, and injured outside center Rachelle Williams took over as B-side backs coach. With many seasoned veterans, the Aggies were able to capitalize on their experience and rapidly advanced to the division playoffs, still third in the league behind Stanford and Chico. The Aggies would not take no for an answer, and beat out University of Nevada, Reno and Oregon State to advance to the Sweet 16 in Pennsylvania for the first time in Davis Women’s Rugby history. Although Air Force (ranked #1) and Ohio State University (ranked #8) beat the Aggies, the team believes this will be the first of many Sweet 16 playoff berths in years to come.

It has been a while since we’ve really updated our team history and now is a better time than ever to inform all those that have been following Davis Women’s Rugby. Three years have past but will not be over looked. Let’s recap what has happened the last few years…

The 2005 season some might say brought about a turning point for Davis Women’s rugby. Although the season didn’t end with a returning Sweet 16 visits doesn’t mean that the season ended on a bad note. With help of a handful of rookies the Aggies were able to win enough league games to secure a spot to Oregon’s version of Regional playoffs where they faced Reed College and Oregon State and walked away with definitive victories. Adrian Pitt was promoted to head coach for this season and was assisted by Corey Pope as the forwards coach.

With reaching Sweet 16 again, being the ultimate goal of each rugby season since our first trip, the first obstacle was making it to regional finals. Top three teams for our region the last few years has left UC Davis off the list and out of contention. In 2006 we reached regional finals after a more or less successful league play with an unexpected win over UC Berkeley due to penalty kicks, and near close win over the defending national champions, Stanford, this season’s group of girls, many who were in their last year of college hoped to reach the round of 16 once more. Unfortunately to get there the Aggies had to get past their newest rival UC Berkeley, and were unsuccessful. With a loss to the bears marked the end of the 2006 season.

As always as of late, Sweet 16’s was the goal of the season and with new head coach, Craig Stewart, and Corey Pope returning with the assistance of Davis Women’s Rugby Alumni, Suzanne Iwatate, this new rugby team would hope to reach this sought out round.

So for the season as of now, many things have happened. Unable to repeat the close game match up against Stanford last year, the 2007 Aggies have still been able to have a successful season. Finishing 2-3, with all losses to the power houses of Pacific Coast Rugby(Stanford, Chico, Berkeley), still put this team in Regional play having to face a worthy University of Oregon team and then facing UC Berkely to determine who would get the last spot to the round of 16.

With a dominating victory over UC Berkeley, the Aggies were able to once again secure a seat in the Sweet 16 tournament, but this time to Florida. Downside was that they were going in as the underdogs to face the 5th seeded team, University of Virginia. No one expected anything amazing from us. We were all happy to be there, but we went there to win and win we did. First having a close game victory over University of Virginia by a spread of two points boosted our confidence as we next faced the number 4 seeded team, University of Northern Iowa. It was a well fought game and both teams played real well, but nonetheless as shock to all and a upset to the undefeated Iowa team, the Aggies earned their way to a first time for the club’s history, seat to the final four. Coming up soon the Aggies will be facing the defending National champions, a team that they’ve already played twice this year, Stanford, May 4th. Who knows, maybe this team may even make it to the final game, They seem to be on a roll with impressive upsets….