2011 Women's Premier League National Champions!!!
The All Blues capped off an amazing weekend in Virginia Beach at the Emirates Airline USA Rugby 2011 Women's Club Championships with a 17-8 victory over the Twin City Amazons to capture the National Championship! The match was extremely physical, with both teams delivering huge hits. But in the end, tries by wing Vix Folayan and outside center Kelly Griffin, as well as a brilliant drop goal late in the game by flyhalf Ruth Bryson sealed the victory! Read about it at Rugby Magazine and USA Rugby or watch a replay of the thrilling match online!
The All Blues earned a spot in the final by topping the San Diego Surfers in the national semifinals. It was another physical game, but relentless defense by the All Blues held off the Surfers, who only scored on the last play of the game. The All Blues were led by two tries from wing Vix Folayan and one from lock Katie Chou. Read about the victory at Rugby Magazine and watch a recording of the game online.
WPL WEEK 6: All Blues complete an undefeated regular season!
It may not have been pretty, but the All Blues pulled out a 32-14 victory over the visiting DC Furies to cap off the regular season with a 6-0 record. Facing their first halftime deficit (14-13) of the season, the team dug in during the second half to score three more tries and hold DC scoreless. Kelly Griffin was on fire and scored four of the team's five tries on the day. Ruth Bryson converted two and Jill Whitfield added a penalty kick.
The B-side continued building on the momentum and topped DC 39-0. Beautiful running and unstoppable continuity led to a flurry of tries, led by a pair from the hard charging Kerri Kubo.
WPL WEEK 5: All Blues clinch blue conference with a victory over Keystone!
The All Blues flew across the country again and came back with a hard-fought 38-0 victory over Keystone. The match-up featured the top two teams in the blue conference and it did not disappoint. Both teams threatened throughout the first half, but neither was able to put any points on the board.
The All Blues made some adjustments at halftime and wing Elaine Gardner took a beautiful pass from lock Katie Chou to score her first try of the day just four minutes into the second half. The All Blues continued to threaten and flanker Phoebe Boone ran in the team's second score off a nice attacking line from scrumhalf Jossy Tseng. As the clock wound down, the backline began to find some space, and outside center Ashley English ran in a try and Elaine Gardner added three more. Jill Whitfield converted four of the team's six tries on the day.
With the win, the All Blues clinched first place in the WPL's Blue Conference, with one regular season game remaining.
WPL Week 4: All Blues take the rematch with Beantown
The All Blues traveled to the East Coast to take on Beantown in a rematch of the previous week's games. The A-Side topped Beantown in WPL action, 38-7. After a back-and-forth first half, the All Blues finally broke through and scored 37 minutes into the first half and again moments later to take a 14-0 lead into halftime. Beantown scored 8 minutes into the second half to pull within 7, but the All Blues dug in and scored four more times to pull away to victory! The B-side fought hard, scoring 2 beautiful tries, but was unable to hold off Beantown and fell 30-10.
WPL WEEK 3: All Blues move to 3-0 in WPL play
It was an afternoon of exciting rugby on Treasure Island as the All Blues A-side defeated Beantown 48-10 in WPL action. The All Blues scored five first half tries to pull out to a 31-0 halftime lead. Beantown stormed back in the second half, scoring two tries, before the All Blues took back control of the game and scored three tries in the final 10 minutes to finish the match with a 48-10 win! In the B-side match that followed, Beantown topped the All Blues.
WPL WEEK 2: TWO VICTORIES IN THE HOME OPENER!
Both sides posted big scores as the All Blues played their first home matches of the season!
The B-side started the day off with a 60-0 defeat of Sacramento State. Strong running and good continuity led to 10 tries by 8 different players!
In the WPL match, the All Blues A-side topped Keystone 72-10 behind hard work from the forwards and beautiful finishing from the backs.
Write-ups of the A-side game are in Your Scrumhalf Connection and Rugby Magazine or relive the action with live tweets from the games at http://twitter.com/allbluesrugby.
WPL WEEK 1: BIG WIN IN DC
It was an exciting opening weekend in the Women's Premier League, with numerous upsets across the league. The All Blues held firm though and defeated the DC Furies 52-12!
The first half was tight as the teams traded tries back and forth and the halftime score stood at 21-12. Despite starting the second half with a player in the sin bin, the All Blues pulled away, scoring 5 tries and holding the Furies scoreless. The scoring summary and lineup are here and a video of the match has been uploaded to the WPL Vimeo Channel.
You can find write-ups of the game at Rugby Magazine and Scrumhalf Connection. And, there are live tweets from the game at http://twitter.com/allbluesrugby (with a couple of pics in the first few tweets).
TWO WIN WEEKEND!
This weekend was a busy one! Saturday, 8/27, the All Blues defeated the San Francisco Fog 59-0 in a preseason friendly. Thank you to the fans who came out and supported the team!
Congratulations to the Pacific Coast Grizzlies for winning the 2011 Emirates Airline USA Rugby Women's All-Star Sevens Championships this weekend! The regional select-side featured six current All Blues: Phoebe Boone, Lucy Croy, Elaine Gardner, Irene Gardner, Kelly Griffin and Nathalie Marchino as well as retired All Blue legend Laura Cabrera who served as a player-coach, coach Brandon Sparks and manager Sarah Davis.
2011 7s NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!
It was a thrilling weekend as the All Blues won the inaugural USA Rugby National Womens 7s Championship! After finishing the first day 2-1-1 in pool play, the team came out firing on all cylinders on Sunday, defeating Glendale in the quarterfinals, the DC Furies in the semifinals, and ath Boston Belles in the final. Congratulations to all and a huge thank you to all the All Blues players, alums, and friends who came out to support the team! Articles about the weekend appeared in Your Scrumhalf Connection, Rugby Magazine, and USA Rugby.
FALL 2011 SEASON
Fall practices have started: Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30-9:30 in Berkeley. The complete fall practice and match schedules are available on the calendar page.
THANK YOU SUPPORTERS!
Thank you to everyone who came out to our recent events, Beer Olympics and the Friday Night Rendezvous, and supported the All Blues! Special thanks to our hosts Missouri Lounge and Inkwell World Tattoo, as well as Lunazel Tequilla, Hpnotiq, and DjVTEK!
WINE COUNTRY 7s
Thank you to everyone who made hosting our first ever 7s tournament a huge success!
Congratulations to the San Diego Surfers for winning the tournament!
EIGHT ALL BLUES NAMED TO PACIFIC COAST ALL-STAR SQUAD
Congratulations to the All Blues who were selected to the 2011 Pacific Coast Grizzlies All-Star Team! Best of luck to Helen Behr, Phoebe Boone, Katie Chou, Sarah Davis, Kelly Griffin, Julie Kieu, Nathalie Marchino, and Katie "Felix" Tsang at the National All-Star Championships in San Diego, May 27-29!
BERKELEY ALL BLUES NAME KATHY FLORES NEW HEAD COACH
The Berkeley All Blues are pleased to announce that Kathy Flores will be returning as Head Coach for the 2011 Women's Premier League season. Flores coached the All Blues from 1994 to 2007 and led the team to 11 National Championships. She stepped down to focus on her duties as USA Women's National Team Head Coach, but is happy to be back at the helm of the All Blues. → read more.
FALL 2010 WRAP-UP
The All Blues wrapped up the fall 2010 season with a third place finish at Nationals. The team fell to New York in the semifinals 24-13 in a hard-fought battle. We bounced back with a 57-27 defeat of the Minnesota Valkyries, which featured a 50 point outburst in the second half!
Big win in Week 6! With a 75-10 defeat of the DC Furies, the All Blues clinched a spot in the top 4 at Nationals! We finished 2nd in the Blue Conference with a regular season record of 4-2. The B-side also won in a exciting match!
Week 5: In a back-and-forth contest, the All Blues fell to Beantown 29-23. Visit Rugbymag.com for a full write-up of the match.
Week 4 tight loss: The All Blues suffered our first loss of the season, 19-10, to the Twin City Amazons. Write-ups of the match are available on Rugbymag.com and Your Scrumhalf Connection.
Close win in Week 3! The All Blues improved to 3-0 after a 22-15 defeat of the DC Furies. Read about the match on Rugbymag.com and Your Scrumhalf Connection.
Week 2 victory! In a thrilling back-and-forth match, the All Blues rallied back from a 20-5 halftime deficit to pull out a narrow 32-30 win over Beantown! Read about the victory here.
Victory in Week 1! The All Blues opened our WPL season with a 36-29 victory over the Twin City Amazons! Also, in the B-Side match, the All Blues topped the Sequoias. For write-ups of the match, please visit Rugby Magazine online or the Your Scrumhalf Connection blog
Interested in playing? Practices are held on Tuesday and Thursday from 7-9PM at Gabe Field in Berkeley. Come on out or email us at jointheallblues@gmail.com for more information.
For our full fall schedule, please visit our calendar.
ALL BLUES PHOTOS
Check out the great photos taken by Bill English: http://billenglish.smugmug.com/Berkeley-All-Blues-Rugby
2009 WOMEN'S PREMIER LEAGUE CHAMPIONSHIPS
The All Blues played against New York in the Cup Final on November 8, 2009. It was a tough match and resulted in a loss for the All Blues. The final score was New York 20, All Blues 10.
ALL BLUES HELPING THE COMMUNITY
The All Blues are supporting the Alameda County Food Bank by collecting canned food at every home game. Come out to our next home game and bring along some canned goods! Alameda County Food Bank website: http://www.accfb.org/index.html
2009 7s NATIONALS
The All Blues finished second in the inaugural Women's Rugby 7s National Invitational Tournament hosted by the SF Fog on August 15-16, 2009. We finished the tournament with a record of 6 wins and 1 loss and we outscored our opponents 167-40. Thanks to Phoebe Boone for putting together this match report: 7s Nationals Match Report
2008 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS
With a 25-17 victory over New York, we won the 2008 women's club national championship! Visit eRugbyNews.com for the full write up!
Back: Coach Alex Williams, Julie Kieu,
Jess Shipley, Ginna Brelsford, Laura Pelton, Beth Ward, Helen Behr, Steph
Roth, Katie Chou, Georgi Ellis, Chris Trucano, Hannah Cho, Rachel Herrmann,
Alex Boskovich, Abby
Middle: Ruth Bryson, Steph Bruce, Allyson Hemstreet,
Katrina Logan, Ashley English, Kelly Griffin, Middy, Vix Folayan
Front: Erica Hanson, Mari Wallace, Elaine Gardner, Ashley Groefsema (Trash), Blair Groefsema, Phoebe Boone, Nathalie Marchino, Kate Audage (Audie), Jossy Tseng, Mel Smit, Meagan Verdeyen, Tisha Waki, Tina Nesburg
