The Virginia women’s club rugby team has been around for over 50 years, and the Division I-AA team has built upon their foundations to perform extremely well in recent fall seasons. The Cavaliers have consistently progressed to the quarter finals and semi finals of the Women’s National Collegiate Rugby Championships.
But when this success is compared to the general recognition that women’s rugby receives in the U.S., Virginia is, oddly, overlooked. The collegiate women’s rugby scene is focused mainly in the Midwest, and many of these teams are Division I — they receive more funding from their universities and can recruit players from across the nation. Division I-AA teams, on the other hand, remain a level below — as highly-competitive club teams — but still require the same level of devotion, funding and number of team players as Division I teams.
All things considered, the Cavaliers have to fight hard to earn their much-deserved attention despite their perennial success. However, at the 2026 Women’s All-Star Tournament in Atlanta Jan. 24, Virginia made sure to be noticed.
The All-Star Tournament is set up by the National Collegiate Rugby group and allows players to compete alongside other women across all divisions in the Silverbacks Park — which seats 5,000 attendees. The NCR selects four coaches to lead the teams — the Bison, Hawks, Stars and Stripes — and from there, players individually apply for the draft. The coaches then take turns drafting 25 players from the applicants to build their All-Star team.
Virginia’s own Coach Nancy Kechner was selected to lead the Stripes, one of the All-Star teams, for the tournament. Kechner recently received the U.S. Women’s Rugby Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award — publicly highlighting her years of dedication to women’s rugby.
Kechner’s selection made a difference in the Cavaliers’ success during this year’s All-Stars drafting process. According to fourth-year Batten student and fly half Milena “Lenny” Keene, Kechner went into the draft knowing about each Virginia player’s strengths on the field, and how they could be the glue to a successful All-Star team.
“[Kechner] went through the whole draft and nobody had picked up any Virginia players, which is kind of crazy, because we do get to the [National Championship’s] semi-finals [in the fall] pretty consistently every year,” Keene said. “We just don't really have a ton of visibility with NCR because it is so Midwestern focused. And so she got towards the end of the draft, and she just … started picking us up.”
Kechner viewed this as an opportunity and picked up her players to add to the Stripes, knowing that their insight into her coaching style would be helpful for leading new teammates.
“She plays a really interesting game plan,” Keene said. “Usually it's not structured or systematic, which gives us a lot more creativity. And at the All-Stars level … it allowed for a ton of creativity and just reading the field … I think her drafting [of] U.Va. players was definitely helpful in that sense, because we know her game plan.”
In the round-robin style of gameplay, the Stripes faced each team in 20-minute halves and, simply put, dominated. The Stripes edged out the Hawks for a victory after securing all of their two-point conversions, and moved on to take the lead over the Bison by 12 points. Their final game against the Stars was where the players really stood out. They recorded their widest margin of victory yet with a 28-12 final score.
“It was such an amazing weekend,” Keene said. “To be able to do it alongside my teammates and my coaches just meant the whole world to me.”
The cherry on top was NCR’s selection of Keene as the All-Star MVP due to her role as fly half, a successfully scored try and multiple strong conversion kicks from difficult locations on the field — including one kicked practically on the sidelines.
Success on such a prominent platform was a win for the Cavaliers in more ways than one. According to Keene, this victory helped teams — including Virginia — from geographic regions outside the Midwest gain greater recognition as competition.
Keene is also hopeful that the successful fall season and victory at the All-Star Tournament will bring more female University students to the team’s practices so the Cavaliers can grow their program. The team does not host tryouts, nor do they cut any of the players, giving everyone the chance to be part of the tight knit group. While most players start attending at the beginning of the fall or spring semester, anyone is welcome to reach out to the team via Instagram and show up anytime.
“Rugby is a really awesome opportunity for women to get into contact sports,” Keene said. “[It is] something that we don't oftentimes get to do … [to] girls that got yellow cards, or fouled out in basketball … you want to be here.”
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