The TCU Women’s Rugby team hosted its first tournament at TCU Saturday.
In years past, the women never had enough teammates to play in a typical game of rugby. Each team must have 15 players on the field at a time. Before, they had to combine with other schools to create a team big enough to compete.
“We’ve had a team for about four years, but we haven’t had enough players so it’s really exciting that we’re finally getting a tournament set up here,” senior mathematics major Abby Gromowsky said.
TCU’s tournament was organized to have seven players from each team on the field at a time. Even though the tournament was not planning based on the 15-player norm, Rice University, Sam Houston State University and Texas State University all participated.
Planning the tournament took a lot of work. Team president Katie Barr said it took her five months to plan and coordinate the event with TCU’s Associate Director of Programs for Sports Clubs Cristie Carpenter and the Texas Rugby Union.
She said she was not sure if she would ever have the opportunity to play in a tournament at TCU.
“Even this year when we were planning it out, I was unsure if we were actually going to get to do it. It’s a lot of hard work to get a tournament here,” Barr said.
The team ran into some problems preparing for the big day. One of the major issues the team had to deal with was the lack of restrooms available.
“I’ve had fun, but I will say that there’s not really a restroom close by, so we had to go to a frat house to use one of the restrooms,” senior Rice student Sarah Snyder said.
Barr also said that there was a problem with one player’s insurance the night before the tournament. Around 7 p.m. Friday, the tournament was canceled due to a player from Texas State not having valid insurance.
After reevaluating all the paperwork, Barr said she realized she had made a mistake and all players were in fact ready to play and the tournament was back on.
Despite the misunderstanding, the team was able to carry out the event.
Preparations included setting the field the night before by drawing the field lines, setting up goal posts, booking the field and organizing referees.
Coach Ben Cole said he hoped to get more fans in the crowd and more teams to sign up in the future.
“We want to do it every year from now on,” Cole said.
Barr said for future tournaments the president should start planning well in advance to make sure these last-minute problems do not occur again.
Although Sam Houston technically won the tournament, Gromowsky said that it was just a friendly tournament. The only thing the winner really wins is glory, she said.
