Brunswick grad Aubrey Boing excelling with Notre Dame College rugby

The sport of rugby has taken Notre Dame College senior Aubrey Boing to places she never thought she would see. The 2019 Brunswick graduate hopes the next stop on that journey is a national championship this fall for her Falcons. Boing took up rugby in the fifth grade and played for the Brunswick Valkyries throughout high school. She also spent time with the Midwest Rugby Union Thunderbirds and the Cleveland Rovers Rugby Football Club's Celtic Elite. Playing for those select travel clubs opened doors for her to travel around the country and even to Ireland her senior year of high school. "I've grown so much to love (rugby)," Boing said. "You meet people everywhere, and everyone's a huge family. Even though we beat the crap out of each other on the field, after the game we all come together and love each other. "Overall, this is just the greatest sport on earth and I'd play it forever." Rugby is a family affair for the Boings, as her brother Donald also played for Brunswick and the rest of the family enjoys the opportunity to watch and cheer from the stands. "My family loves it," Boing said. "My parents love going to the games and meeting other rugby parents." After a surprising run to the National Collegiate Rugby Division I National Tournament that ended with a third-place finish, Notre Dame entered this season ranked first in the NCR Power 10 rankings and is not showing any signs of slowing down. "We're trying to win the national tournament in Texas," Boing said. "The next few games are all away and we only have a few off weekends, but we're putting in all the effort." Boing, fellow 2019 Brunswick graduate Raina Perciak, Alivia Leatherman and Kelly Wallenhorst are captaining Notre Dame this season. The Falcons opened with a notice-serving 57-17 clubbing of third-ranked Northern Iowa in Chicago, with Boing as the starting center. The Panthers knocked out Notre Dame in the NCR semifinals in December and the National 7s in May. "I honestly didn't know how that game was going to go," Boing said. "Last season, we played that team in the national tournament and we lost (35-29), and then we lost again in the 7s tournament (12-10). They are a good side. It felt really good to show our true colors of Notre Dame College's side." The win Saturday showed what a full Falcons squad can do, which was something they were far from having last season. After the COVID-19 pandemic basically erased the 2020-21 season, the Falcons entered last fall with only 13 players on the roster. Boing and her teammates were forced to help recruit players out of their classrooms just to have a team. Notre Dame turned those unenviable circumstances into a season to remember with third-place finishes in the 15s and 7s. The Falcons topped Marquette 42-14 and California-Davis 24-5 in 15s and 7s, respectively, after semifinal losses to Northern Iowa. "It was kind of a shock in a way," Boing said. "We were all kind of let down my sophomore year. A lot of people kind of fell off NDC rugby and we lost a few players because of (COVID-19). Winning the regional and making the national tournament was a big step for Notre Dame College." Boing said she never expected to be able to compete in a regional setting, let alone a national one, and called the experience "crazy and eye-opening." She gives a lot of credit to coach Jack Nece for coming into the program and setting the culture where it needed to be. "At the national tournament, we saw a lot of the bigger teams that we had not seen before because we switched divisions," Boing said. "(Nece) came into our program and just changed everything. His coaching style is very well laid out. He's done a lot for our team and put us in position to be invited to regionals." As much as Nece laid out his expectations and style, he still needs players like Boing to execute on the field. "Right away, it was obvious that she had loads of experience," Nece said. "What makes her great is her all-business mentality. She's all gas and no brakes on the field. With that, she's always battling and fighting through injuries." As a captain and leader, Boing won't let up. "I think attitude is one of the biggest things," she said. "If you mess up at 100%, you're still doing it at 100%. I say that all the time to my teammates. If you're not doing it at 100%, it's not going to be OK." Nece hit the recruiting trail hard in the offseason to bring in 12 new players, including five from the state champion Brunswick Valkyries. Incorporating those new faces brought its own set of challenges to the early stages of the season. "Right off the bat we were kind of iffy, because we have a lot of freshmen and everyone was brand new," Boing said. "It was hard to pick up the energy the first few weeks, but right when we got into that game the energy was great. Everybody played a really good game." With the expectations in place and the effort already shown on the field, Boing does not expect to have those questions moving forward. Contact John Urchek at jurchek@medina-gazette.com.