Santa Monica Women Win SLO Tri Tip 7s
The Santa Monica women took two teams up to San Luis Obispo this past weekend for the annual Tri Tip 7s, with the A-side winning it all and topping a record field of 18 women’s teams entered in the tournament.
Local news coverage confirmed it was a scorcher in more ways than one.
The Lady ‘Phins went undefeated in pool play, beating LARC and Cal Poly SLO to advance.
They then beat Empire Monarchs in the quarter finals, 35-9, with a hat trick by Dani Alvarez, and tries by Ivanna Avellaneda, Izzy Cerullo and Barb Johnson.
In the semi-finals, SMRC came up against the Berkeley All Blues (a WPL team in 15s season and perennial power). A close match ended in a 15-10 win for Santa Monica, with tries by Cerullo, Christina Derhagopian and Whitney Smith.
The ‘Phins then played Sacramento Amazons in the Cup final. (Sacramento were NorCal Champs and won Pacific Regionals for 15s last season.)
But with tries from Catherine Montgomery, Derhergopian and Johnson again, we came away with the win, 15-7, taking home the hardware!
The B-side had a great outing, as well.
Following the epic bronze medal win of our USA women at the Paris Olympics, numbers have surged at practice late into the summer. The second side for Santa Monica in SLO included 4 first-time players, mixed in with veterans. Though the “Shrimps”, as they called themselves, didn’t pick up a W, everyone had a blast playing. Having such a mighty showing on the sideline no doubt contributed to our success on the day and let everyone know that Santa Monica is the best club to play for in Southern California!
(Santa Monica Women’s Rugby also won the party, taking on the many bars of San Luis Obispo late into the night in pirate-theme regalia.)
The women’s summer 7s season was coached by 2-time Brazilian Olympian Izzy Cerullo. As mentioned, we had massive turnout all summer at practice. The season was a bit challenged by limited opportunities to play games in the Southern California tournaments, but the post-Olympic surge of teams that showed up in SLO finally gave Santa Monica a chance to elevate their game.
By the way, another highlight from this past week was two-time World Series Sevens Player of the Year and Olympian Perry Baker coming to the women’s practice on Thursday, September 5.
The women are now on a short break, but look to start 15s pre-season games up with friendlies as early as November.
Please consider making a specific donation to the women’s program this season, as they continue to grow and hit new heights.
