Sweet 6! Belmont Girls’ Rugby Romps To Sixth Consecutive State Title Over Weymouth

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Photo: Co-Capt. Mia Taylor lifts the state championship trophy after Belmont won its sixth consecutive title, defeating Weymouth, 80-0, on Saturday, June 15, at Curry College.

In a near flawless performance of top-flight rugby, Belmont High School Girls Rugby secured its sixth consecutive MIAA Division 1 state title, romping past a young, scrappy Weymouth squad, 80-0, at Curry College on Saturday, June 15.

The victory continues Belmont’s dominance in the tournament. The Marauders have won every championship game since 2017, when Belmont scored 17 unanswered points to defeat Algonquin Regional High School 17-14 in a true nailbiter.

Belmont HIgh School, the 2024 Div. 1 Girls’ Rugby State Champions

According to Kate McCabe, who started the varsity team a decade ago and has led the squad to each of its half dozen championship victories, it has been “a privilege” to coach what she and her players have created both this season and as a program.

“No one’s showing up because I’m so much fun to hang out with,” said McCabe. “It’s the players that made a family and a system that people feel empowered to be a part of even when they come in knowing nothing about rugby,” she said.

For senior outside center and co-captain Mia Taylor, the victory culminates in a personal three-peat of state championships.

”This team is just incredible. Every day, I’m excited to go to practice. I love these girls so much,” said Taylor, who will soon be off to UC San Diego, where she will continue playing rugby.

Belmont senior Mia Taylor on her way to a hat trick.

While Belmont came into the game unbeaten in 2024, having defeated Weymouth 26-12 in the first match of the season, the Marauders have had its handful with the Wildcats. In its past two encounters, Weymouth kept the matches close until late, including holding the lead early in the 2023 state semi-finals.

Belmont was anything but dominant in the first five minutes, losing its first four possessions on a series of miscues and nerves. But McCabe allowed the team seniors to take care of adjustments on the pitch.

“The coaches didn’t talk to you,” McCabe told her team after the game. “Nobody stepped onto the field. We let you lead, and you played off each other that whole time. Your voices were heard, and they were repeated together, supporting one another. We could not be more proud.”

Belmont’s stellar backline defending shut out Weymouth

Belmont dominated the defensive side of the ball. The front eight prevented Weymouth from putting in a positive phase, with the Wildcats inside Belmont’s 22 meters just once in the first 35 minutes. Belmont’s backs – led by senior wing Ally Caputo and junior Robyn Tonomura-MacDonald – never allowed Weymouth’s swift wings and full-back to break free turning the corners.

Senior lock Sally Amer secured her brace, scoring in the 15th and 23rd minutes, with the first a 10-meter run when she ran over two defenders before lunging into a try. Her second was more impressive: stealing a Weymouth scrum and moments later taking a straight line to try for the five points.

It didn’t take long for Belmont to right the ship, with Taylor grabbing her first try on a run around the right side after nine minutes. It was left up for Belmont’s senior fly half and kicking specialist Lucy “Buzz” Kabrhel to nail the two-point conversion from the most acute angle for the 7-0 lead.

Belmont senior wing Ally Caputo on her way for the team’s fourth try against Weymouth

Moments after receiving the kick, Caputo discovered a crease in Weymouth’s front line and streaked 60 meters for Belmont’s fourth try of the half. Three minutes later, Kabrhel found herself with a meadow of space and slalomed into try. With her conversion, Belmont would enter halftime with a 33-0 lead.

Despite being up by five tries, a rugby advantage is never secure as the scoring team receives the ball after a try and can dictate the game. But Belmont would allow the Wildcats just a single drive close to its try line before senior prop Olivia “Liv” Mann propelled herself to try after Belmont ran a master class in bringing the ball down the pitch. Taylor would throw down a brace within six minutes to complete her hat trick, and the rout was on. Mann, senior lock Abby Hill, junior “Number 8” Sadie Taylor, and Becca Michaud finished the scoring.

With Kabrhel’s 11th of 13 conversion kicks sailing through the uprights, the referee blew his whistle, and Belmont would celebrate its most dominating performance of the five previous state finals.

“It’s a long game, and over the course of the playoff run, we tell them, ‘You play the very best that you have. Give it your all, put it all on the field.’ And today, you can see people were just running as hard as they possibly could, and it was really beautiful to see,” said McCabe.

When Taylor was presented with the state championship trophy, she immediately started jumping up and down, her smile as bright as the sparkling late spring sunshine, expressing everything she and the team were feeling.

“My senior year meant so much to finish it here with every one of my teammates. I’m going to miss this so much,” Taylor said as she carried the trophy off the pitch.

Belmont High Boys’, Girls’ Rugby Go Undefeated, With A Pair Of State Championship Trophies In Tow

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Photo: Belmont High Girls’ Rugby Head Coach Kate McCabe getting drenched after Belmont won its fifth consecutive MIAA Division 1 state girls’ rugby title.

The Belmont High School’s rugby program duplicated last year’s achievement as the Boys’ and Girls’ squads returned home to Belmont with a pair of Division 1 state championships in games played Sunday morning and afternoon on June 18 at Curry College.

Boys’ Back Line Leads The Way To Consecutive Championships

Win, return, repeat.

Belmont High Boys’ made it consecutive MIAA Division 1 state titles as the top-ranked Marauders defeated this season’s chief challenger, second-seed St. John’s Prep of Danvers, 24-14.

Belmont High finishes the season undefeated, 10-0, for the first time in the program’s 17-year history, which included three matches against out-of-state competition. The Marauders equals its traditional rival, Boston College High, with the most number of MIAA state titles with three.

“Day one of this season was, ‘Guys, you’re defending state champs, but that was last year’s team. This is a different team. We’ve won nothing,” said Belmont’s Head Coach Greg Bruce. That belief led to the team to adopt a “Zero, zero” mentality – which the team shouted out after every score by either team – which got the team grounded for the season.

Rather than viewing the score of individual games or an undefeated season as the measure of the team’s success, “they just wanted to come out here to play their rugby and have one last opportunity to be together,” said Bruce.

The match’s first 20 minutes was the expected heavyweight bout of hard tackling with no quarter given between programs that acknowledge a level of “bad blood” between the two. “[Chirpy] on the field and from the stands,” according to a Belmont coach.

“We knew they were going to be really physical, and they came out even more physical than we expected,” said Belmont High senior prop Asa Rosenmeier, a co-captain heading off to Brown, where he will play rugby. “We pride ourselves on our defense, so we took that challenge straight on.”

Playing without the senior inside center, co-captain, and the program’s all-time leading scorer Jake Cornelius who was injured in Belmont’s 49-14 semi-final victory over BC High, the Marauders stayed within their “game” of running at Preps’ front row led by the 6’5″, 280-pound Rosenmeier and keeping possession of the ball by controlling their rucks and winning the scrums.

After coming close in the first minute, Belmont struck first at the 17-minute mark as junior Number 8 Max Cornelius took a “tap and go” and snuck over the try line after being set up by a 30-meter run by senior outside center Ben Williams that put the ball inside the 10-meter mark. Junior inside center Stephen Hong – who moved into Jake Cornelius’ number 12 role on short notice – nailed the conversation despite the acute angle to stake the Marauders to a 7-0 lead.

“I was ready for this moment,” said Hong. “We got the ‘W’ so I’m pretty happy about my performance.”

It took just five minutes for the Marauders to add its second tally as Hong hopped by a defender and sprinted 40 meters to score after Rosenmeier stole a Prep pass to give Belmont the ball 35 meters from goal.

Prep got on the scoreboard through Luke Rinklin, the Eagles’ Man of the Match, when the junior fly-half quickly took the ball on a touch and go and weaved 30 meters unopposed to place Prep within one score of the lead, 12-7.

But Belmont would have the final word in the half as senior flanker Matt Doban broke two tackles in the last ten meters to lunge over the try line at the 35-minute mark to up the Marauders’ lead to 19-7 at intermission.

During the opening 15 minutes of the second half, Prep’s task was straightforward: Get an early try and keep the score tight over the final 20 minutes. And the Eagles attempted just that, possessing the ball 20 meters from the Belmont try line as they pressed the attack.

But Belmont’s hard-pressed defense would bend but not break. While the Marauders’ front row punished St. John’s Prep’s runners in the center of the field, it was Belmont’s young back six – Henry Thomas, Luke Wilgren, Hong, Williams, Myles Torres, and Wyatt Sclafani – who made up for their lack of size with speed and tackling prowess prevented Prep from breaching the defensive line including twice inside five meters of the goal line. And when Prep crossed the try zone seven minutes into the half, Hong and junior fly-half Thomas prevented the Prep player from grounding the ball, allowing sophomore full-back Torres to come in for the steal.

“We got down low around the breakdown and then fired up and hit them. You can’t be scared playing defense. That’s how we held them,” said Rosenmeier.

“We asked them to put out their best defensive performance of the year,” said Bruce after the game. “Even though the score might not be the lowest points we’ve given up, that was by far the best defensive performance.”

The Marauders’ victory was secured with one of the season’s flukiest tries. On their first venture into the Eagles’ territory 15 minutes into the half, as Belmont was kicking towards the touchline, a Prep player made what one MIAA official called “an extraordinary athletic play,” leaping for the ball three meters out of bounds to tap the ball back into play. But Belmont had two players covering the kick, and the ball bounced once straight into Wilgren’s arms, who walked over the try line in what the left wing said is “the easiest try I’ll ever score.”

With Belmont up 24-7 and time draining, St. Johns’ was looking to the always dangerous Rinklin to spark a final comeback. And when Prep scored through senior Ryan Albano’s three-meter run with 12 minutes remaining, the Eagles would only cross the midfield line with less than a minute to play. When the final whistle blew, the team received their medals, and Rosenmeier and Cornelius raised the trophy aloft.

Girls’ Dominating Win Results In Five-peat

Just one word describes the championship game and season for Belmont High Girls’ Rugby.

Supremacy.

Belmont pocketed its fifth consecutive MIAA state championship (completed in seven years), defeating a young Brookline High squad 59-0, placing a capstone on a 9-0 undefeated season.

“The team wanted to make a statement about defense, and I think they really came out in the first half and did what they needed to do,” said Head Coach Kate McCabe, who received a celebratory drenching at midfield.

Belmont was only threatened once in the season by a rapidly improving Weymouth squad in the Division 1 tournament semifinals. The Marauders fell behind 7-5 at Harris Field before scoring 26 unanswered points on four tries for a convincing 31-7 Final Four victory.

“The girls walked away from that semi-final match saying the defense and the spread that we were doing wasn’t enough. It really motivated them,” said McCabe.

Already without star Number 8, senior co-captain Val Detheux, on the pitch – lost to a knee injury suffered during the fall soccer campaign – Belmont would suffer a second blow when its all-around commanding presence, junior right flanker Alek Townsend, left the field with a knock to her knee in the first half. But the team didn’t miss a beat Sunday, as there was no loss of skill and talent with the substitutes who were sent in.

“Honestly, the privilege that I have with the depth of this bench is unbelievable,” said McCabe. “The ability to turn around and know exactly who you can put in and make a difference is amazing.”

In a game in which the weather changed by the minute – rain, sun, a dose of showers – Belmont began scoring in the first two minutes with a driving run from junior lock Rowan Dragon with the conversion from junior fly-half Lucy Kabrhel, – who went 7 of 9 in conversion attempts – as the team began a masterclass on all aspects of the game.

Brookline couldn’t string the passes needed to stretch the Marauder back line, forcing them inside where they could not make headway against a physical Belmont front. When the Warriors attempted to push the ball out wide, their runners would meet Townsend, who laid out several crushing tackles before she departed.

On offense, the Marauders were much stronger up front while Belmont’s passes, starting from senior scrum-half Shelby Ball, were quickly delivered and on the mark.

Belmont junior lock Sally Amer punched in Belmont’s second try at the 10-minute mark, followed by junior inside center Olivia Mann diving across the line at 19 minutes to give the Marauders a 21-0 lead at the half.

The Marauders’ junior full-back Mia Taylor finished the game early in the second half with two scores, including a 45-meter solo gallop and a 30-meter run around the edge.

“I was committed to finding the openings as I got the passes from my teammates,” said Taylor, who garnered a second-half hat trick. Taylor saw her sister, sophomore flanker Sadie score her try while senior prop Elise Conroy finished her career with a pair in the final minutes.

And for the fifth time, Belmont took home the state tournament winners trophy as an emotional Detheux raised the silverware with senior co-captain Number 8 Sage Tonomura-MacDonald in front of their ecstatic teammates.

Losing just a handful of senior starters from this year’s first 15, McCabe said the program is on track to continue its impressive championship run.

“We’re building from a good place,” she said.

Four For Four: Belmont High Girls’ Rugby Defeats Lincoln-Sudbury, 34-0, For Fourth Straight Div. 1 State Crown

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Photo: Belmont High School Senior Capt. Evie Hamer holds aloft the MIAA state championship trophy after Belmont defeated Lincoln-Sudbury, 34-0, to win its fourth consecutive Division 1 rugby state title

After a first-half where it was forced to rely on its underrated defense by a gutsy Lincoln-Sudbury Regional team, Belmont High School Girls’ Rugby flipped the switch on its dominating attack scoring five tries in the second half as the Marauders defeated the Warriors, 34-0, to take home the program’s fourth consecutive MIAA Division 1 state championship before a near full house at Curry College. Saturday, June 18.

“Man, every time it’s really hard,” said Kate McCabe, Belmont’s head coach since the program began in 2015. Belmont has won each of the four Division 1 tournaments contested since the MIAA sanctioned the sport in 2017. (The 2020 season was cancelled due to Covid while the girls’ played Rugby 7s in a non-title post-season.)

Having taken on Lincoln-Sudbury for the third straight title game, McCabe said every meeting with the Warriors “is a battle and whatever the first game of the season [a Belmont win, 39-26, in April] is doesn’t guarantee what the last game of the season is.”

The match was a tale of two halves, with second-seed Lincoln-Sudbury (5-3) playing a possession game from the kickoff, holding onto the ball for nine of the first 10 minutes while putting Belmont (7-0) under pressure by employing a wide-open game from the back. L-S came close to scoring midway through the half when the Warriors appeared to have crossed the try line but lacked control of the ball.

“We weren’t expecting them to be coming this hard,” said Belmont’s Number 8 Val Detheux. “They’ve been more wide offense and I think we got surprised by that.”

That first half Belmont demonstrated its tackling ability which is the underrated part of its game. An example occurred with the Warriors driving five meters to try, standout tackling first by open-side flanker Alex Townsend then inside center Helen Feldhaus sent L-S ball carriers back 10 meters stalling the push.

“We had amazing tacking from our captain, [senior fly-back] Evie Hamer, who shouldn’t have had to make those many tackles. She was phenomenal,” said McCabe, who also gave kudos to all the backs for shutting down the tightly organized L-S attack out wide.

In the waning moments of the half, Belmont finally took advantage of a sustained possession finding room on its right side to come within a few meters of the try. Despite being knocked off the play earlier, Detheux reentered the pile of players and squirmed the ball over the line for the game’s first score with three minutes remaining. A missed conversion allowed Belmont to walk off the pitch with a precarious 5-0 lead.

The halftime break provided the opportunity for Belmont to regroup and reset its offensive.

“We were able to to kind of settle down, play our pattern, really work what we know and then some of that space finally opened up,” said McCabe, who pointed to Marauders forwards especially the two locks, Lulu Conroy and Giulia Vecchi, who ran up the gut of the Warrior line luring the L-S forwards into the middle of the field, allowing more space for Belmont’s backs to “strike out wide.”

The Marauders’ quickly brought the ball down to the Warrior end and five minutes into the half, sophomore left wing Mia Taylor took the ball from 20 meters out, broke two tackles and dove over the try line to up the score to 10-0. Just a few minutes later, Taylor once again sprinted down the left side to found clear sailing to give Belmont a 15-0 advantage at the 46 minute mark.

Belmont’s third try of the half was its most creative as right wing Allie Caputo gathered a Belmont downfield kick at midfield and laid off to a streaking Detheux who outsprinted the L-S back line for her second and the rout was on at the 55 minute mark. In a moment of rugby camaraderie, Detheux was congratulated with a hug by a L-S player after the touch.

“I play a lot of outside club rugby and I know half of these players,” said Detheux. “Yeah, we’re friends.”

Belmont finished the scoring with 40 meter treks from Caputo – who paid for the try by being knocked off the pitch with a NFL tackle – and de la Fuente who sprinted clear then lunged for the try line after getting caught five meters out.

With the final whistle, the Marauders completed its perfect season and is taking home another state championship trophy to the newly-built high school which has yet to have a display case installed.

“We’ll find a closet to put them in for now,” said Adam Pritchard, Belmont’s acting Athletic Director.

“I’m so honored to be able to play with all these amazing seniors in their last year or as they go off to play rugby in college,” said Taylor. “I’m just so honored to be chosen to wear this jersey and be a part of this champion team.”

In the year marking a half century since the enactment of Title IX, McCabe sees her sport as a vehicle for equality in sports.

“I just want so many girls in Massachusetts to have the experience of stepping on the field and knowing that they are playing a full-out contact sport where they are dominating, where they are strong, where they’re recognized for their athleticism that they’re putting on the field,” said McCabe.

“In a world that’s seeking egalitarianism, that’s what rugby is. It’s fun and I want more teams out here.”