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04/24/2021 12:00 AMThe North Haven High School girls’ rugby squad was founded in 2016 and has been competing as a club team for past several years. Last week, Head Coach Kristin Cataldo’s team started its 2021 season by hosting MidState for some 7-on-7 rugby at the North Haven Athletic Complex on April 22.
A few years after Owen Davis founded the program, Cataldo took over as North Haven’s head coach in 2019. Cataldo, a former soccer and tennis player at Hamden High School, first got into rugby with the club team at UConn in 2014 and still plays as a member of the New Haven Women’s Rugby Club.
A couple of years ago, one of Cataldo’s teammates told her that North Haven had a rugby team and put her in contact with Davis. She became the head coach and enjoyed helping the team’s athletes learn about the sport during the 2019 season.
North Haven wasn’t able to compete last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but now, Coach Cataldo is back on the field with a cast of 10 players who are trying to build up the sport in town.
“The improvement that we made from the first game to the last game was insane. It was night and day, and it was really good to see the growth they made throughout the entire season,” said Cataldo of her first year as head coach. “Knowing that we are a part of growing the sport is cool. Rugby is one of the biggest-growing sports in the country, and it’s fun to show the girls that they are capable of doing it. They are learning about strengths that they didn’t know they had before. Seeing them learn a new sport, be excited about it, and do well is really fun.”
There are a handful of high school rugby teams that compete at the varsity level in Connecticut. Coach Cataldo said that her goal is for North Haven to field a varsity team one day. For that to happen, North Haven would need to increase numbers on its roster.
Rugby is played in either a 15-on-15 or a 7-on-7 format. Two years ago, North Haven was playing 15-on-15, but since there aren’t as many people on the team this year, North Haven is instead playing 7-on-7—the same format in which rugby will be contested at the upcoming Summer Olympics.
Similar to football, the goal in rugby is for teams to move the ball up the field and into the opposition’s territory to ultimately score points. Unlike football, forward passing is not allowed and there are no whistles for stoppages between every play. Instead, play is continuously ongoing unless a team gets called for a penalty, at which point there is a scrum in which each team gets a shot at gaining possession of the ball.
A team scores five points when it touches the ball down in its opponent’s try zone for what’s called a try. After that, in 7-on-7 rugby, a team attempts a drop kick for a 2-point conversion. In terms of distance, the kicker can stand as close or far away from the uprights as he or she wants to. However, the kicker cannot move the ball left or right and must always laterally attempt the conversion from the same place where the try had been scored. The team that scored then kicks the ball back to the other team.
In 7-on-7 rugby, there are two halves that are each seven minutes long, and each player ends up playing every position on the field at some point during the game. After her team played 15-on-15 two years ago, Coach Cataldo is teaching her athletes how to play a new style of rugby this spring, while also fostering a love for the sport among everyone on her roster.
“The biggest mission is just to get the fundamentals down—the proper way to tackle and how to safely do it, learning how to work together as a team and communicating, and getting the ball down the field as easily as possible,” Cataldo said. “Rugby is a team sport through and through. You have to rely on everyone, not just one player. Everyone has to do their part. Everyone has to pass, carry the ball, and tackle.”
North Haven has four returning seniors, including two captains, who are leading the team’s quest to get better. North Haven’s senior captains are Nicole Reynolds, who has also competed for the girls’ swimming team, and Olivia Scoppetto. Coach Cataldo said that both athletes are outstanding captains who are doing a solid job of leading the team.
“Olivia and Nicole have just shown great leadership, even before this season with getting recruitment together and making sure everyone had their paperwork done. They are both very organized, are natural leaders, and work so well together,” said Cataldo. “Nicole is definitely motivating. When the team is down, she says, ‘We got it. Let’s just keep moving forward.’ Olivia is also just in a positive mood all the time. If something doesn’t go the right way, she focuses on the positive, instead of the negative.”
North Haven’s two other seniors are Vincenza Muoio and Kelsey Coppola. Muoio is going to continue her rugby career at Colby Sawyer College after she graduates from high school. Just like her two captains, Coach Cataldo had rave reviews for what Muoio and Coppola bring to the table for North Haven.
“Kelsey is very dedicated to the team. She’s played since her freshman year, and her dedication to the team has definitely been known,” Cataldo said. “Vincenza started in her sophomore year and she was so quiet, but today she went out made the most tackles in the entire game and was the first one out there talking.”
North Haven played three matchups against MidState on its first day of gameplay last week, taking defeats in all three contests. When the competition was finished, North Haven voted for its Player of the Game, while MidState also took a vote to name a Player of the Game for North Haven.
North Haven’s players voted for Muoio to receive Player of the Game honors. MidState cast its vote for Chandler-Ceste Martinez, who is one of North Haven’s two returning juniors. Ceste-Martinez, a diver on the girls’ swim team, joins swimming teammate Brooke Nebor as a part of North Haven’s junior class.
“Chandler is a natural athlete. She started off with a gymnastics background, so I wasn’t sure how she would do, but she took to the game like a fish to water. She’s the smallest girl on the field, but one of the most vocal,” Cataldo said. “Brooke is a player who definitely grew from the first game to the last game [two years ago]. She has shown this year that she has improved so much and did great today.”
Fellow junior Skylre Hine is a newcomer on the team. North Haven also has three freshmen on its roster in Emily Vece, Lexy Coppola, and Gina Peretore. North Haven’s assistant coach and club advisor is RJ Notaro, a longtime coach with the boys’ soccer squad.
As her club strives to improve its rugby skills, Coach Cataldo said that North Haven is doing so with some strong camaraderie on the squad. Cataldo feels that having excellent chemistry is going to work to North Haven’s advantage both this year and going forward.
“This team has always been super close,” said Cataldo. “Everyone gets playing time, and they all hang out together outside of practice, which is great.”
Coach Cataldo has both short-team and long-term goals for the North Haven rugby program. For this season, she wants to see her players continue improving with the fundamentals of the sport, while helping North Haven earn its first win in team history. Down the road, Cataldo would love to see North Haven have both girls’ and boys’ rugby teams playing on the varsity stage.
“During the next few weeks, I want to see the girls improve on their skills and gain more confidence on the field. And get some wins for sure and give more girls an opportunity to score. I want them to all have that feeling, especially the seniors,” Cataldo said. “In the next few years, I want to see a girls’ varsity program and a boys’ varsity program. And I want nearby towns to see this team and want to do their own program to get rugby to continue to grow in the state.”
The North Haven girls’ rugby team is still accepting new players to join the squad for this season. Anyone interested in playing for the team can contact Owen Davis at odt4444@comcast.net.