Banshees Fall Short in Vital Late-Season Contest

By: J. Gray | Pawtucket, RI | June 6, 2025 |

As the first season of Women’s Elite Rugby reaches its final stretch, the Boston Banshees suffered a setback in their final home game that could put their championship hopes in jeopardy.

On Fan Appreciation Day at Centreville Bank Stadium, the Banshees lost a hard-fought game 22-31 to the Bay Breakers, one of three teams that are neck and neck for a spot in the final. In their first game against the Breakers on May 10, the Banshees took the 49-28 win. In this second match-up, it was the Breakers who pushed ahead to win what was a one-try game late in the second half.

Saturday’s game was very physical, characterized by several heavy tackles and battles between the front rows. Banshees prop Caitlin Weigel stood out both offensively and defensively, carrying the ball and creating several turnovers for the home team.

“You don’t usually ask props to play 80, and she played 80 today, and she has been playing really well,” Banshees Head Coach Kitt Ruiz said of her number 3. “She’s had great go-forward, great decision-making… she has been having a standout, I would say, in the last four games; she has just been a standout player.”

The visitors showed off their vertical game with cohesive passing and off-loading, particularly on set plays. They also gained possession off of several Banshees’ line-outs. The Breakers saw tries from five different players and overwhelmed the home side in scrums, usually a strength for the Banshees.

Breakers prop Paris Hart was not surprised to hear that all of their team’s tries came from different players. “Every one of my teammates are just absolute dogs. I’m obsessed with every single one of them. It could have been anybody scoring those tries.”

Still, the home side scored twice in the second half, bringing the game within four points. Coach Ruiz called the second half “the best tactical game of rugby that we have played this season.”

While tactics may have favored the Banshees in the second half, the Breakers found an advantage in their mentality. “We came in high energy, like not letting off the gas,” Hart explained post-game. “That was our goal, was to just come in, go hard, hard, hard, think about 20-minute increments, and just work… What really kept our squad going was just vibes. Every time we scored or every time something good happened, we celebrated each other, and we hyped each other up, and every time we went up, the other team got a little sadder. And so we just kept dominating.”

From the sidelines, Breakers coach Hannah Stolba highlighted her team’s consistency:

“At the right moments, we stuck to our game plan and how we wanted to defend, and that allowed us to play on our feet a little bit more, and then I think we also, in a couple of really good moments, just had the intention with the ball in hand to do what we wanted to do on attack. So really, really proud of everybody being able to sort of adapt to that.”

The impact of Saturday’s game on the WER standings cannot be understated. After this win put the Breakers ahead of the Banshees with a game in hand, another win next week against the Chicago Tempest would all but solidify their place in the championship game. 

“I think everybody knew it,” Coach Stolba acknowledged. “It’s also one of those things where we can address the elephant in the room… but it wasn’t something that we were hyper-focused on, I would say, until probably the last ten minutes of the game, where we knew what we had to do in terms of managing the clock, but our first goal was to come in, win the game, and win it with four tries or more.”

The Banshees were also aware of the importance of the game:

“It was a conversation that the tactical leaders had with each other and with myself,” Coach Ruiz said post-game. “We also talked about it before the game: this was a must-win game. One thing from a coaching perspective that I don’t think I pushed enough was the need for four tries, and that’s something that’s on me… and now clearly there’s like a less than 20% chance we could make it to the finals based on how things roll out, which is on us.”

Both teams were impacted by a number of national-level events happening across the world that took players away from their clubs.

“For all the coaches, we’ve got players coming in and out a lot right now, and there’s a lot of changeover, so it’s really hard to keep consistency in our lineups and consistency in the program,” Coach Stolba admitted. “So I think Kitt had a tough job on her hands today trying to figure out how to do that with so many folks missing.”

Coach Ruiz reported that the Banshees were missing eleven players to different tournaments and camps, but she also acknowledged that the visitors had similar challenges. “I think that having the firepower of 11 national-level players [missing] is huge, and so we knew that we would have to play really tight… Both of us, right? For this weekend, the Breakers didn’t have any of their normal hookers; they didn’t have a consistent thrower… so yeah, it’s been tough.”

With so many Banshees out, several players had their first caps or their first starts with the club. Brooklyn Vaifanua, playing in her second week with the Banshees after finishing her final season at Life University, and Alex Pipkink, earning her first start with the club, both had big impacts.

“Pip’s been around the whole season,” said Coach Ruiz, “but with the Eagle backs that we’ve had that have been away, she hasn’t really gotten the opportunity. [She] definitely stepped in and stepped up, and her speed was noticeable; her evasion was noticeable. Defensively, she held her own as well. She definitely stood out.”

In the league standings, the loss makes it very unlikely that the Boston Banshees will clinch the second spot in the championship game against the Denver Onyx on June 29 at TCO Stadium in Eagan, Minnesota. Boston would need to win their final game of the regular season against the TC Gemini, and they would need the Breakers and the New York Exiles to lose all of their remaining games.

For the Breakers, the win over the Banshees briefly gave them second place in the standings before the Exiles handed the Onyx their first loss of the season on Sunday. Now, the Breakers will need to get as many points as they can out of their final two games to clinch their spot in the championship game.

Although there’s still a small chance that their season could be extended, the Banshees have started looking toward the future. 

“We lost a very key game against New York many weeks ago, and then losing this match… it’s really just looking back on the season, those big games, and what we have done differently in them. And that’s not for the athletes; that’s really more for me to think about as a coach. Going into next season, how do we build to those games and how do we do the tactical things that we did well in the second half in all of the games that we play?”

The Banshees will play their tenth game of the season against the TC Gemini in Minnesota on June 13 at 8 pm EDT. 

Final score: Boston Banshees 22 – Bay Breakers 31

Boston Banshees
Tries: Dunn (20’, 63’), Carlton (43′)
Conversions: Harkavy (21’, 64’)
Penalty goals: Harkavy (23’)

Bay Breakers
Tries: Berazuela (6′), Wessman (16′), Jurkowski (37′), Vogel (48′), McGrath (71′)
Conversions: Siano (7’, 17’), Ramos (48′)

Follow all the action of the Women’s Elite Rugby League this year with Bad Dawg Sports; follow alongside J. Gray and her journey to bring you all the insight behind the game and its players.

Subscribe today for just $2 per year and get in-depth analysis and coverage.

Join the leaders of the pack today!!!!