“Down! Down! Down! Down!” Shouts from the field can be heard past the Southwest Quad, as one of Georgetown’s nationally ranked athletic teams is practicing late into the evening. It’s a Tuesday night, nearly 11 p.m., and hardly any students are outdoors. But a small group of women sprints up and down the field, simulating game situations at a time when most students are in the library studying for tests. Healy clock tower starts chiming. The team comes together in the end zone. They huddle and speak for a few minutes. The clock sounds an 11th time.

The 9-to-11 p.m. Tuesday night slot at MultiSport Facility is not meant for lacrosse or soccer practice; the official varsity teams of Georgetown University lock up more convenient times. Instead, it’s the women’s club rugby team, a group of 25 girls that have literally run themselves all the way to the national tournament. Currently ranked No. 13 in the nation by Rugbymag.com, the women’s rugby team will spend the upcoming weekend in Florida playing in the first two rounds of the Division II National Championship, the first trip to the national tournament in the history of the program. The Hoyas are the No. 10 seed in the field of 16.

After the 11th stroke of the clock, the lights shining over the field stay on to the surprise of the team. Typically, 11 p.m. signals lights out, and more than once the team has been forced to practice in the dark. But the inconvenience of the dark and the late time slot are not enough to bother this team – not after they’ve come this far.

Women’s club rugby goes back about 10 years at Georgetown, but it didn’t begin to improve as a program until five or six years ago.

“It’s very big emotionally for the alums and the older players,” senior flanker Hannah Ensler-Rivel said.

One important aspect for these Hoyas is a core group of young Georgetown rugby alumni that provide fan support for the team both at home and on the road. But unlike the men’s club rugby team, which traces its roots back half a century, the women’s team does not have a large alumni base to rely on for support, nor does it have a rich treasury to provide transport, lodging or food while the players are down in Florida. It’s up to the players, their families and some generous contributions from alums to pay for their stay, which will necessitate missing two days of class – another sacrifice the players have had to warn their teachers about in advance.

“Professors have been really understanding,” team president Kristen Guernier said. “I think especially because we show up a lot of Mondays and Tuesdays with a lot of bruises and black eyes.”

Guernier is one of the many younger players on the team, while Ensler-Rivel is one of the few juniors on the team – a lot of third-years are studying abroad. Recruiting is carried out through impromptu tables set up in Red Square at the start of the fall and spring semesters. The team does its best to get attention from interested undergrads, even selling spandex to the incoming freshmen during GAAP weekend. It’s players like Ensler-Rivel – athletes who want to be on the rugby pitch – that join the tight-knit squad.

These young women come from a mostly inexperienced rugby background. Two played rugby while at high school in Hong Kong, but most of the team never played before they came to the Hilltop. Ensler-Rivel played soccer in grade school and most of the girls played either soccer or softball in their younger years.

“Rugby is a hard sport to understand,” Ensler-Rivel said. “You have to watch it and get thrown into it. You can’t read it and listen about it to understand it.”

It’s a harsh game, where torn ligaments and broken bones are not a rarity.

“Rugby, as a sport, is a really intense team sport,” senior forward Alexandra Maher said. “We don’t have any superstar, standout players, and we have fun on and off the field. We work out for each other and we build bonds through rugby on.”

The field itself is a little wider than a standard football field. It’s a full contact, tackling sport, without any pads or helmets. Players move the ball by running down the field, like football, but can only pass backward, so speed and agility are premium assets on the pitch. Scoring occurs through tries; the players must touch the ball down in the “in-goal” area to earn five points. A conversion kick following the try is worth an additional two points. A penalty kick, called a drop goal, is worth three points.

There are eight forwards (the defensive players) and seven backs (the offensive players). In an average game, a team scores about 20 points. Scoring 40 points is a real offensive achievement, like scoring 10 runs in a baseball game or 100 points in a college basketball game.

This team prides itself on not having any one superstar or even special skill players. The players are simply in great shape, and that allows for a lot of versatility, especially when injuries begin to mount up. Fitness is the unanimous pick as the team’s greatest strength. These Lady Hoyas describe themselves as the smallest team in the region, using their speed to outrun and outwork teams on the field.

“We are a lot smaller than everybody else,” senior backs captain Jane Dewier said, “and we have to be more agile than a lot of other teams. This is the first year the tournament is wide open for anybody. We’re all very excited for Florida because this is the first time that we’ve been down there.”

Their season starts early. They play throughout the fall just for a shot to play in the Potomac Rugby Union Championship. The Hoyas won the PRU title, which gave them the chance to play in the Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union Championship, where the Hoyas had a shot to qualify for nationals.

Since the Mid-Atlantic region included last year’s Division II national champions (Shippensburg), there were three open spots up for grabs for the national tournament. The Hoyas were able to grab the third seed after winning two out of three games. The Blue and Gray will be joining Temple and LaSalle in the national championship.

Preparation for the big show has been, in one word, brutal. The Hoyas spent the winter training in a nine-week sprint interval training program, working on strength, agility and endurance. To prepare for the hot Florida sun and an atypical 4 p.m. start time, the team has been practicing at 4 p.m. each day, even in the recent hot weather, to condition their bodies.

“Weather has definitely been an obstacle for us. Injuries have been an obstacle as well,” first-year Head Coach Joanne Liu said. “We’re pretty short on players. We’re a small team right now – 22 or 23 on our roster.”

Liu is in her first year coaching the Hoyas after coming over from Boston College, joining assistant head coach Mel Fiore, who is in her fourth season of coaching at Georgetown. Typically, 15 players start, leaving just a handful of subs and making fitness even more necessary.

“I think what happens is you have more inexperienced players, you have more heart,” Liu said. “And hopefully we have that to our advantage, and I definitely think we play more as a team. Other sports have a lot of individual stars and we don’t have that, we can’t afford to have that. If one or two players go down, we can’t fall apart.” 

The Hoyas haven’t fallen apart yet. They’ve trudged through the rough weather, through the dark, through the injuries. They’re as close a group as any on Georgetown’s campus, and they are just as excited to do something that’s never been done before.

“We’re a really good team,” Ensler-Rivel said. “People just don’t know about us.”