When she started her career as head coach of the women’s rugby program at St. Bonaventure three years ago, Meredith Pyke had nine returning players. Only three had played high school rugby.

Today, with a 2023 national title and an unbeaten 2024 regular season in her holster, Pyke’s 33-player roster is now filled with players with high school experience — 23 in all, including 11 freshmen and one transfer.

The success on the national stage has dramatically widened Pyke’s recruiting footprint.

“It’s really nice to pull in 12 (new) players that have rugby experience who could go in to a varsity match in their first weekend if we needed them to. I think that is the big difference,” said Pyke.

The Bonnies open their regular season at 10 a.m. Saturday at home vs. Aquinas College to kick off Saturday’s events of the Rugby Alumni Weekend’s 50^th anniversary celebration. (The men host Belmont Abbey at noon.)

“We have girls from Tennessee, Virginia, Massachusetts and New Jersey, two girls now from California, one from Arizona, and a Canadian on the team,” Pyke added. “We are getting more recognized as we continue to do well playing at one of the top levels of competition in the country.”

Pyke lost All-Americans Makenna Ramsey, Kaylee Middaugh and Ashlee Reid to graduation, but the influx of new and returning talent gives her confidence in the team’s ability to succeed again this season. (Middaugh returns as an assistant coach.)

One newcomer is freshman Kaegan Rhodes from the Corning Lions, the 2024 New York State High School Player of the Year.

“I knew she was an experienced scrum half, but she has just come in and blown us away with what she’s able to do,” Pyke said. “The collegiate game is a bit different, but she’s adapted so well. And Katie Crawford (Allegany, New York) and Taryn Gonzalez (Middletown, New Jersey) have been very impressive with all the work they’ve put in over the summer to compete for time at backup scrum half.”

Fly half Triniti Shaffer (Murfreesboro, Tennessee) “just knocked it out of the park” at a round-robin friendly last weekend in Syracuse, and Ahi Ma’ake (Concord, California) is “really doing some wonderful things” at forward, Pyke said.

In their first season in Division I last year, the Bonnies stormed through the regular season, going undefeated and outscoring their competition 415-0 before losing to eventual national champion Wheeling in the Allegheny Rugby Union title game.

“Winning 100-0 is OK every now and then, but not every week. It does nothing to help us grow as a program and be competitive with the best teams,” Pyke said. “NCR (National Collegiate Rugby) is very conscious of the disparity between varsity and club teams so I think we will start to get better games.”

The complete Bonnies roster and season schedule is available here.

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure is a community committed to transforming the lives of its students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a commitment to academic excellence and lifelong civic engagement. Out of 167 regional universities in the North, St. Bonaventure was ranked #6 for value and #14 for innovation by U.S. News and World Report (2024).