Chargers Rugby in Championship Mode

Charger Rugby Club (formerly Carroll Chargers) has been fielding a high school girls’ team since 2018 and has won every Rugby Indiana 7s and 15s championship in that time. This fall, the Chargers are looking to add a touch 7s title to its accomplishments, transferring its intensity to the low-contact, speedy and skill-dense version of the sport.

The Chargers has been fielding boys’ teams since 2001, and when discussions of forming a boys’ middle school team arose, Kris Carroll’s twin daughters inquired about a girls’ team.

“Yeah, right,” Carroll recalled his initial reaction. “They were cheerleaders at the time, 5’1” and 105 lbs. I told them, ‘Go get some friends and we’ll give it a shot.’ And now they’re both freshmen at Davenport [University] playing rugby.”

Carroll is still a boys’ assistant coach and has been the girls’ head coach since the high school team’s inception in 2018. The club has just added middle school girls to its offerings, and hopes to debut 3rd-4th grade and 5th-6th grade programming this spring. The feeder system will bolster a team that already gets great numbers. The Chargers supply three sides to the touch 7s season, and last year, when the pandemic didn’t limit availability, the team had 52 players.

“Rugby gives girls an opportunity to try something that most people think they shouldn’t be able to do,” Carroll reflected on the robust roster. “When you start a team, you get one of two things. Either you get girls who haven’t played sports or aren’t doing well in their sport, or you get tremendous athletes that want more of a challenge. We’re getting high-caliber athletes from varsity soccer, volleyball, softball players.”

Carroll also lauded the Chargers board for its wealth of support and organization, and credited the club’s progress to the volunteers’ dedication.

The Chargers won their first 15s title 68-17 in spring 2018, and then repeated with an 82-0 win in 2019. The team also took home the fall 7s championships and traveled to 7s tournaments around the country, building a reputation locally and beyond.

“Our biggest thing was speed,” Carroll said of the quick success. “As a lifelong forward I’ve always been more of a pound the middle, pound the middle, and then spin it. But I didn’t have bigger girls and had to change the game plan and find different ways to draw in the defense and then play out wide. Our outside players are tremendously fast and so that was our first season: Get the ball out wide and go. Obviously I’m probably a little biased but I’ve yet to see a team that can across the board match our team speed.”

The team didn’t squander its quick successes and funneled those experiences into a standard of play and winning mentality.

“The team knows that it doesn’t matter whether you’re varsity, JV or third side, we expect the same results and that everyone can do the same job,” Carroll said. “They’ve all stepped up into those roles.”

Leading the way this year is senior Kate Woenker.

“She is one of the most natural rugby players I’ve ever seen,” Carroll said. “She was a stud as a freshman and stood out then. She’s most likely heading to [NCAA varsity] Army West Point.”

Woenker pairs nicely with fellow captains Lauren Winger and Anesa Ellis, “who is 6’1” but agile and runs a 5.6” 40 [meter]. College scouts and recruiters are drooling over her.”

Senior Natalie Hirsch has only played one season of 7s but that’s all it took to garner some collegiate attention.

“She really stood out,” Carroll praised. “She learned the game so fast and is overall a tremendous athlete, so it wasn’t a matter of anything other than teaching her the sport.”

The Chargers were able to practice for a couple weeks before the Rugby Indiana touch 7s season kicked off in early October. It took a little time for the team to embrace the no-contact version of the sport.

“At first everyone was a little disappointed [with touch 7s],” Carroll said. “They didn’t think it was real rugby. And even myself – I never portrayed it to the team but I kinda felt that way, too. But once I stepped back, I realized it was a great opportunity to not only get out on the field and compete, but to really focus on the basics. You can’t rely on running someone over because you’re bigger. You have to create, find and hit gaps. It’s a chance to see how we need to shift on defense. It’s a chance to work on our communication. And we can focus on the more tactical sides of rugby without the added pressure of the tackle.”

The season kicked off on Oct. 3 with a six-team field, which included Rogue River from Michigan.

“We played them at the Midwest tournament in 2019. It was definitely nice to get something different,” Carroll said. “We’ve seen Carmel and Noblesville and based on past results the girls have a hard time getting motivated for those games because they know their game plans. But a new team in the mix keeps them on their toes.”

Rogue River in particular helped stoke the competitive spirit, and captain Woenker leaned on that familiar feeling to motivate the squad.

“That’s one thing that Kate told the team after practice. ‘It doesn’t matter what type of rugby we’re playing; we play like champions,” the coach recited.

Rugby Indiana does not record results during the first three weeks of competition, but the week-four championship tournament (Oct. 24) will award a trophy.

“From my perspective, my goal for my team is to be better at the end of season than the beginning,” Carroll said. “Trophies and championships are nice but at the end of day I want to develop rugby players, so my goal never changes.

“I’m excited to see them master the game plan and the tactics, without the crutch of contact,” the coach looked farther ahead. “So when we get back to tackling, that’s the only thing they’ll need to add in.”

The Chargers are just happy to be on the field. Covid-19 canceled the spring and summer seasons, and there was no guarantee that any competition was going to be available for the fall. Carroll serves on the Rugby Indiana board, so he watched as the high school boys preferred no fall competition over touch 7s. During the first leg of the tournament series, the Chargers boys reported to Fort Wayne to support the girls and run touch.

“We’ve always geared ourselves as one team, one family,” Carroll said of the club mindset. “They all warm up together, they sit together. You don’t see that with other teams but we’re good about that.”

The hope is that the spring will bring back 15s but skepticism is already starting to surface around the country. If the full-length game does return, then teams like the Chargers will be primed for bigger gains compared to those that opted out of fall competition.