The Western women’s rugby team won a friendly match against in-state rival Eastern Washington University Saturday afternoon on the turf field at Wade King Student Recreation Center.

Since the game was a friendly match, and didn’t count as a league game for Western’s team, also known as the Flames, the women used it as an opportunity to try different positions, allowing some of the newcomers on the team more playing time.

By the end of the game Western came out on top with a score of 81 points compared to Eastern’s seven.

Mika Underwood, the women’s rugby game coordinator, said this season is the second season Eastern has had a women’s rugby team, whereas Western has had an established team since 1977.

“It was definitely a great learning experience for a lot of the girls,” team backs captain Sarah Falk said. “We can try to teach them how to play rugby, but in rugby you really have to learn by actually playing, and having to think for yourself out on the field.”

Within the first five minutes of the first 40-minute half, Western team member Jena Walentoski scored the first try, which is worth five points, but can be converted to seven points if it is followed by a successful place-kick.

Western continued the trend set at the beginning of the match by scoring trys nearly every five minutes throughout the entire game.

“This is a good game to really switch players up from their normal positions and give Eastern the opportunity to play against a more seasoned team like ours,” Underwood said. “We wouldn’t really be helping Eastern if we just played with the intensity of a league game, and we wouldn’t be getting the chance to experiment within our own team.”

The game had more than 20 penalties which resulted in scrums, or restarting play with a fight for the ball. Many of these scrums were a consequence of the ball passed forward instead of backwards or sideways.

During a scrum a handful of players from opposing teams come face to face, pushing against each other in a shoving match in an attempt to reveal the ball from the middle of the scrum.

“Rugby teaches the [women] aggression, which gives them more confidence,” Falk said. “It is the type of sport that once you start playing you fall in love with it, and it becomes more of a lifestyle.”

It took until the second half of the game for Eastern to score their only try. Following Eastern’s try Western responded by adding 40 points, with Leslie Norberg making the last try and Erin Stehr scoring the final two points by a successful place-kick with two minutes left in the game.

“I feel like we’ve been playing pretty well and getting to work on a lot of mistakes we have been continually making in other games,” said Flames back April Fogel. “For our next league game I think we could bring up the intensity a little.”

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