This fall the reigning champions of the Women’s Premier League will play inside the multi-million-dollar, state-of-the-art Infinity Park stadium. Looking to defend the title, the Glendale Raptors Women will play all four of its home games inside the stadium, on soft, luscious grass. Home games against the San Diego Surfers (September 12), the Oregon Rugby Sports Union (October 10), Berkeley All Blues (October 24) and Beantown RFC (November 7) will begin at 3 p.m, and will include full stadium production and will be webcast on the RugbyTown USA website.
“We always enjoy having the opportunity to use the facilities at Glendale. It gives us a chance to get the community excited about women’s rugby and fill seats in the stadium.”
Co-Captain Taryn Brennan
“The team is very excited to play in the stadium,” said Taryn Brennan, the team’s co-captain. “We always enjoy having the opportunity to use the facilities at Glendale. It gives us a chance to get the community excited about women’s rugby and fill seats in the stadium.”
Where the Raptors play, however, should be only part of their increased popularity this fall — winning should be a reason too.
If you haven’t been tuned in, the Raptors’ WPL team haven’t lost a match in more than 10 months, a streak that could be extended this fall.
“I don’t know how much we focus on it, but it has been a good ride,” Rachel Ryan said. “We are proud of what we’ve accomplished but not satisfied.”
When Ryan, Brennan and their teammates look back on this accomplishment, a win streak that started with a WPL championship, and continued through an undefeated developmental season in the spring, it’s impossible to forget how it started: A controversial 13-7 semifinals loss to the Atlanta Harlequins.
A defeat that would never hold up.
In reality, the Raptors didn’t play well enough to win that day, yet the Harlequins were forced to forfeit for using an ineligible player and the Raptors moved on anyways.
Then-coach Michael Fealey said he didn’t know how to feel about it at the time.
“It feels strange,” he said.
Either way, it had the Raptors, perhaps the biggest beneficiaries in recent WPL history, moving on and winning the championship over the Twin Cities Amazons a day later.
There, of course, is still controversy surrounding it to this day.
“It’s something that fuels us. We didn’t choose for it to happen like that but we want to prove ourselves,” Ryan said.
Years from now, when looking back on the loss that never was, some of the critics will fade and some will not.
Glendale Raptors Women
Seth McConnell
What’s undeniable, though, is that the second chance also served as the springboard moment to maybe the best year in Glendale women’s rugby history.
“Some people said we didn’t deserve it. It was frustrating. There were people hiding behind computers, telling us we didn’t deserve it,” Raptors veteran Jeanna Beard said. “We know we deserved it. We know the fight it took, we know we’re champions.”
New women’s coach Mark Bullock, meanwhile, says it is time to move on.
When asked about it in the offseason, the rugby expert downplayed the importance of the streak and said it was not what his team was focused on going forward.
“Every team is different,” Bullock said. “We’re different than the team that won last year. And we’re different than the team from the spring. From our standpoint, there is no pressure to repeat or be undefeated, or whatever. We want to get better and play at our highest potential.”
He’s right, in that the 2015 team will look far different than the team the won in 2014.
Fealey, for one, has since been replaced by Bullock, who took over after Fealey resigned last January. Jenna Anderson, Jen Montoya and Jamie Burke have since retired. And Mary Pezzulo has been moved off the active roster after she injured her ACL on the first day of fall practice.
“A lot of veterans will not be on this squad,” Bullock said. “We’ll need some players to step up in leaderships roles and some already have.”
The Raptors do return Ryan, Joanna Kitlinski, Laura Miller and Sarah Chobot- who were named to the USA Eagles roster over the summer. As well as Hannah Stolba, who returns to the team after she missed the spring season hiking the Appalachian Trail.
And from the spring season, they bring back breakout stars Denali Graham and Fatima Chavez, who should help the team’s overall speed in Bullock’s up-tempo pace.
“I’m super excited for the players we have,” Bullock said. “We have high expectations of how we perform.”
When asked for goal-oriented expectations, Bullock went just short of mentioning another championship.
“I guess the goal would be to get to the semifinals,” he said. “If you do that, you have a chance.”
The Raptors should know that better than anyone.