The Raptors have had a good year on the rugby pitch. The Brentwood-area team won the Tennessee high school fall 7s title and then funneled that momentum into the spring. After an undefeated regular season, the Raptors defeated Spring Hill 28-14 for the Tennessee 15s championship.
The Raptors hadn’t won a DI 15s state title since 2013, and when current captain Stephanie Esmonde joined the high school team three years ago, the program was competing toward a Division II title.
“That was kind of hard for us,” Esmonde remembered freshman year. “But then the next year we came in third [in DI], and this year we finished first.”
Esmonde, a junior, has been playing rugby since 7th grade, following her older sister’s example. An aggressive, opportunistic scrumhalf, Raptors head coach Richard Boone put her on the starting roster as soon as she was eligible. Esmonde likes being at the epicenter of the action and perfers the freedom to get involved in tackles, rucks, backline plays – wherever support is needed. She’s been running with the USA South Panthers since freshman year as well and recently helped the academy side to a 3rd place finish at Tropical 7s.
There are five seniors on the team of 24 and a lot of juniors, but the team is still young in experience.
“I don’t think fall 7s [positively] impacted numbers because we did lose a lot of girls during 7s,” Esmonde said. “We had to recruit a lot for 15s, and I’m telling you, we went to all of the sports. We got amazing athletes from track, basketball, soccer, wrestling, but they’re all new.”
But they bought in. The team trained twice per week and Esmonde estimated that 95% of the squad reported to every practice.
“The new girls were great. They asked a lot of questions and were focused on the game,” Esmonde said. “But there were some bumps in there. Like when we traveled two hours to play Tribe and won something like 80-5, some of the girls didn’t understand why we would [travel so far to] do that. They were still grasping [the essence of] the rugby community, and that’s not something you can teach. But by the end of the season, they understood it. They got out of that competitiveness and realized you can be enemies on the pitch and best friends off of it. And that’s the most important thing for us.”
Photo: Christian Taylor
The Raptors faced teams from the Middle and West Tennessee conferences – the Memphis area is still dormant – and went undefeated through the spring. Esmonde and flyhalf Madison Smith directed the team from the halfback positions.
“She does a fantastic job reading the offense and defense, and hitting those gaps for her backs,” Esmonde said of the graduating senior. “Along with she will switch up the play if she sees the defense isn’t going to fall for it. Her back line communicates fantastically and she passes the ball where they’re going to be, not where they were.”
The Thomas twins are rising seniors and they continue to dominate. Kaylen scored four tries in the state final, and Kelsey plays No. 8.
“No one can really tackle her,” Esmonde said of the loose forward’s power.
The sisters are also USA South Panthers, as are Rachel Martelle and Kel Branchflower. The former does damage from the centers and uses her soccer upbringing to lead the way in conversion kicks. Branchflower came from wrestling, and the rising junior has good pull-away speed. The two team up on the outside attack.
Spring Hill presented the biggest challenge during the spring, and the Raptors won their regular-season match by a try. Undefeated, the Raptors advanced directly to the state final, while Spring Hill and Columbia Central contested a play-in match for the title berth. It took three overtime periods, but Spring Hill prevailed.
Photo: Christian Taylor
“We wanted to make sure we were a lot tighter by the rucks, because the forwards would be pushing us. They’d give the ball straight to their forwards and they’d pound us to gain extra yards,” Esmonde said of goals for the final. “And if that didn’t work, they’d swing it to their backs, so we couldn’t leave that extra open space on the field. It was really hard to get down that exact positioning and making sure we weren’t clustered on the field. We’re always watching for the kick and making sure there’s a sweeper there, and also making sure we’re matching numbers and marking each player.”
Esmonde indicated that there were a lot of nerves in the first half but that the communication was good. Both teams scored two tries in the first half, but Branchflower’s conversions kept the Raptors up 14-10 at the break.
“Then we just got used to it and realized we were overthinking it all. We just had to do what we were doing all season,” Esmonde said of the second-half shift. “We stepped it up and they didn’t score at all in the second half.”
The scrumhalf pointed to the Thomas twins for their defensive efforts, as well as junior wing Saraia McGhee, who protected the sideline. Esmonde called out Long Island University commit Sophia Gaddis for cleaning up missed tackles and leading the way in poaching.
Championship MVP Kaylen Thomas scored two more tries and Branchflower converted both for the 28-10 victory.
“We always knew it was going to be a hard-fought win,” Esmonde said. “You want to leave everything on the field, right now, because you don’t want to come off wishing you did something differently. I was really pleased with what I saw this game. It was probably one of our better performances, but not our best, just due to the amount of penalties we got. But that’s just because of our newer players and learning exactly what’s happening.”
But now those new players know what it’s like to win a state championship and hopefully many will return next season. And maybe some will join Esmonde and teammates as the USA South Panthers move into summer scheduling. The NDP is sending squads to the Falcon 7s in Little Rock, Ark., and NAI 7s in Salt Lake City, and those experiences always enrich a player’s understanding of the sport as a whole.