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Although five of Fallbrook High School's girls rugby players spent the March 3-6 Las Vegas Invitational tournament on elite teams rather than with the Fallbrook squad, the Under-18 Warriors still won their pool.
"They did pretty well," said Fallbrook co-coach Craig Pinnell.
"Some ups and downs," Pinnell said. "Missing those five players made a difference."
The Atavus All-Stars in the Under-18 Girls Varsity 7's division included Fallbrook players Kayla Canett, Alyssa Henneberg, Michel Navarro, and Hannah Savin. The Atavus All-Stars team in the Women's Elite 7's division included Olympic Training Center players and also included Fallbrook junior Lilly Durbin. The USA Select national team's players included 2015 Fallbrook High School graduate Richelle Stephens.
The under-18 Atavus team was 2-0-1 in pool play and won quarterfinal and semifinal matches before a loss in the championship final to the British Columbia Elite Youth (BCEY) squad. The Women's Elite 7's Atavus team including Durbin won two games and lost to Great Britain Select in pool play. USA Select was also in the Women's Elite 7's and won all three pool play games. The France Select team defeated Atavus in the quarterfinals and USA Select in the semifinals.
The youth matches were played at Heritage Park in Las Vegas. The adult competition took place on the field outside of Sam Boyd Stadium with the finals being played in Sam Boyd Stadium. Fallbrook had an under-18 team in the Girls High School Open 7's division and a team in the Under-16 Girls Junior Varsity 7's. The sevens version of rugby is so called because there are seven players on each side, and due to a USA Rugby limitation on the number of minutes youth can play in one day the games consisted of seven-minute halves.
Fallbrook did not field an under-14 team in the tournament, but some of the Fallbrook Rugby Club under-14 players spent the Las Vegas Invitational with the Warriors' under-16 team. Miriam Friebe was the captain of Fallbrook's under-18 team for the Las Vegas Invitational. Lily Ballis captained the under-16 Warriors.
In the Girls High School Open 7's division, Fallbrook's pool play March 3 consisted of a 27-10 victory over Wisconsin, a 36-10 triumph against Tennessee Tri-Star, and a 10-0 win over the Vancouver Wave. In the March 4 placement contests, a 32-10 quarterfinal loss to EORU, which stands for Eastern Ontario Rugby Union, was followed by a 12-0 victory against Atlantis.
The Fallbrook under-16 team began its March 4 pool play with a 15-15 draw against the Foothills Lions but then lost a 14-0 match against the BCEY 7's, a 22-0 contest against the South Bay Spartans, and a 19-14 game with the Mavericks club based in Calgary. The Warriors then faced the Foothills Lions the following day, although the Lions took a 14-0 victory.
Fallbrook also participated the Girls High School 15's play and, after the March 3 sevens games, the squad of 23 players which included some under-16 girls as well as the under-18 players faced Hawaii's Kahaku team.
That 15-a-side game which followed the under-18 squad's three sevens matches involved 25-minute halves. Kahaku had a 12-5 halftime lead with Friebe scoring the Fallbrook try. "We looked like we could hold on, but by then they were so exhausted," Pinnell.
The final score was 36-5.
Several of the Fallbrook teams' opponents were club teams or all-star squads. "They did pretty well playing against those all-star teams," Pinnell said. "We had some standout players."
Playing without the Warriors who joined elite teams allowed some of the younger Fallbrook competitors additional playing time. "It's a little bit of experience under their belt," Pinnell said.
"Each season the girls come in and want to play for a national championship team," Pinnell said. "A game like that puts everything into perspective."
Last year, Fallbrook's girls won USA Rugby's under-19 National Invitational Tournament championship for the fifth consecutive year. That team included nine 2015 seniors.
Pinnell and co-coaches Marin Pinnell, Paul Bell, and John Duncan utilize early-season tournaments to provide experience for the girls and to determine what preparations need to be made for the Southern California Youth Rugby League season and the National Invitational Tournament.
"We now have a pretty good idea of where we're going," Craig Pinnell said.
"We achieved the goals of building and understanding where our game needs to go in the next few months if we want to achieve a higher success," Pinnell said. "I think it put everything in perspective."
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