Tour Time for Women's Colleges

March 9, 2006 – It's still snowing in a bunch of places, but women's college teams are aching to get on the pitch. What better time than now, spring break time for many, to go overseas and play.
Among the most intriguing of these is perhaps Brown University, who are touring Uganda this year.

The tour was the brainchild of captain and three-time club forwards MVP Jen Hustwitt. Hustwitt is an international relations concentrator and Royce Fellow at Brown and spent the past summer in Uganda studying youth and secondary school achievement. She combined with team president Kelsey Engelbrecht to set up a rugby trip to that country to help energize the women's rugby culture there.

Brown will be the first non-African women’s team to play in East Africa and the tour obviously will carry with it much more meaning that just a bunch of rugby games. Participation in women's sports in East Africa runs into a variety of cultural and traditional obstacles, and this tour, it is hoped, will help keep culture and women's sports strong.

Penn State University if gearing up for another un at a national title by playing in Ireland. They have four matches scheduled from March 7 to March 11. On Tuesday they faces Munster U21s, losing 24-10.

PSU appeared to have fielded a fairly young side in the first half, and then subbed in some more experienced players later on.

Flyhalf Amber Benlion had en excellent second half and scored the first PSU try. Sarah Carter capped off a very strong maul to score their second.

Last night's game against Limerick was called off due to unplayable conditions. Penn State is due to play Munster's full side today.

And Vassar College goes on tour as well, taking both men and women to UK and France.

"It's a chance to get everyone out of their comfort zone and challenge themselves," said head coach Tony Brown.

Vassar plays Exeter University on Sunday, followed Tavistock three days later. A week after that it's Paris Universite and then Chilly-Mazarin Essonne. The men play Exeter and Tavistock, then Topsham and the Sorbonne.

And even if they're not going overseas, teams are traveling. Princeton is off to Arizona. Army is playing the Champagne Classic in San Diego, and Ohio State is off to Texas.

Spring Break never looked so good. Original Article (requires log-in)