Mystic HS Girls win 4th Newport Championship

(Newport RI). Mystic earned their 4th sequential plate on the High School Girls Champions trophy at Newport on Sunday besting the rival Barbarians in a close match. Captain Sadie Hershberger was awarded the HS Girls tournament MVP and will join past Mystic MVPs Charity Johnson, Savannah Glover and Mali Asnake on the trophy.  High School Girls rugby continues to grow with 5 full sides competing: Worcester Clovers, New England Rugby Club, Irish Wolfhounds, Wrentham Barbarians and Mystic River. Mystic fielded a full 15 including 6 players making their debut for Mystic River. In the 5-team competition Mystic had a bye in the first round and was seeded first going into the brackets. On the path to the final Mystic River defeat the Irish Wolfhounds and Worcester Clovers.

Just as when Mystic River and the Wrentham Barbarians met in the Bay State Games final last summer the outcome was determined by the last passage of play. Mystic dominated the first half of play with converted tries by Lind and Church; score 14-0. For 4 minutes Mystic held off the Barbarians before an exchange of penalties led to a Barbs converted try. The kickoff failed to make 10m and Hershberger capitalized on the FK at midfield running 50m to score under the posts. On the kickoff the Barbarians answered with their own 50m run to close the gap to just 7 points. With the referee announcing last play the Barbarians executed a beautiful attacking kickoff with the ball finding grass and bouncing into their arms. But the ball was knocked on for Mystic to recover leaving the score at 19-12

Mystic River vs Irish Wolfhounds 37-5 Scoring Costa 2T 1C, Weiner 2T Church 1T, Raneri 1T, Hershberger 1T

Mystic River vs Clovers 34-0 Scoring: Lind 2T 2C Costa 1T Hershberger 1T, Nagano-Heffernan 1T, Raneri 1T

Mystic River vs Barbarians 19-12 Scoring: Lind 1T, Church 1T, Hershberger 1Tm Weiner 2C

Roster: Madeline Church Kiera Kinder (d) Lilico Peel (d) Isla Ingram (d) Erika Iglesias (d )Clare Raneri Erika Nagano-Heffernan Jil Costa Marine Bonmart Emma Malarky Sadie Hershberger (c) Nina Lind Annalena Irizarry Kylie Weiner (d) Abby Knaggs (d) (d) debut (c) captain Photo credits to Garance Chaptal (@garancechptl_art on Instagram )