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A new challenge

Alcona alum finds success with Maine rugby team

Courtesy Photo Alissa Terpstra carries the ball during a rugby match. Terpstra, a University of Maine freshman and Alcona alumnus, helped the Black Bears to a successful season and a spot in the round of 32 in the postseason.

As a young girl, Alissa Terpstra listened to her father Terry talk passionately about the 16 years he spent playing rugby.

She told herself some day it would be cool if she ever got the chance to play.

More than 1,000 miles away from Lincoln, the Alcona High School alum got that chance. As a freshman at the University of Maine, she joined the women’s club rugby team and helped the Black Bears to a solid season.

Maine went undefeated in New England Small College Rugby Conference (NESCRC) play and advanced to the round of 32 in postseason play before losing to the US Coast Guard Academy.

“Personally I think that we had an amazing season and I look forward to many more,” Terpstra said. “As soon as I signed up, I called my dad and told him. He was so happy that I did it. I was a little nervous to play at first, as I had no experience. But I absolutely love it.”

By taking up a new sport, Terpstra is following in her father’s footsteps. Terry Terpstra played at Central Missouri State in 1980-1982 and played for Steamboat Springs, Colorado Rugby club for several years. In all he played 16 years as a tight head prop.

Rugby teams consist of 15 players who are all assigned a specific number based on their position. Alissa Terpstra spent time as loose head prop or one and tight head prop or three. As a prop, Terpstra plays a position somewhat similar to a lineman in football. Props are often the team’s biggest players and help provide stability during scrums–restarts after infringements or when the ball goes out of play.

During scrums, players from both teams are packed together as they attempt to gain possession of the ball. The two props line up on either side of another forward called the hooker in the front row of a scrum. The hooker in the middle tries to hook the ball with their feet to gain possession for their team and ultimately get the ball to the team’s scorers in the back of the scrum.

For Terpstra, a former multi-sport star at Alcona, picking up rugby wasn’t too hard and she said the experience of playing in high school, where she played volleyball, softball and basketball, helped her make the transition.

Terpstra, who is a marine biology major with a double minor in art and history, joined the team after looking at Maine’s club offerings and showed up to practice the day after she signed up. In addition to helping her build up endurance, members of the team showed Terpstra and Maine’s other rookies how to tackle properly and get tackled safely; two keys in a sport with a great degree of physicality. She also had to learn where to position herself correctly in a sport where players are constantly jostling for position.

“I definitely think that my high school helped me with rugby. They helped me have the endurance to play the game (the games are 80 minutes long),” Terpstra said. “I think that being a post player in basketball has helped me learn how to be rough with people and how to not let people past me. It has also helped me know how to not let people move me.”

Rookie or not, Terpstra helped the Black Bears go 5-0 in the regular season, finish second in the NESCRC and qualify for the round of 32.

With a spring season coming up, Terpstra is eager to get back out on the field. Maine is making plans to travel to Europe for international competition and also will take part in the annual Maine Cup and Beast of the East tournaments.

“I am absolutely playing next season,” Terpstra said. “I am told that the spring season is a lot of tournaments such as Beast and Maine Cup. I am so excited to be a part of that. In the offseason we are going to workouts with a university trainer twice a week.”

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