Instead of trekking through the snow in State College this past weekend, Sadie Anderson was surrounded by sand.
As part of the USA Women's Rugby Sevens team that made the 13-hour plane ride to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, the sophomore on the Penn State women's rugby team drove through camel-filled deserts on the way to an international sevens tournament -- the first since the International Olympic Committee voted rugby into the 2016 Olympic Games.
But she wasn't the only Penn State product to make the trip. The 12-person roster boasted three Lady Rugger alumnae in Jenny Lui, Lauren Rosso and Alison Worman, as well as incoming junior transfer Christiane Pheil. Pheil, a varsity tennis player from Colorado University, is set to transfer to Penn State this spring. Assistant director of rugby Peter Baggetta also traveled with the team as an assistant coach, as well as head trainer Sumie Ichizaki.
The team, which Baggetta said was picked based on the player's body of work from the developmental camp in October, the All-Star Sevens tournament in August, and city leagues they have played in, left from Washington, D.C., Sunday evening and arrived in Dubai late Monday night.
Rosso said it was many of the players' first international experience, and it was tough fighting the jetlag. But team had help from a human performance manager who told them when to eat and sleep, taught them different stretching and recovery tactics, and made sure the players were weighed at appropriate times.
In the days leading up to the start of the tournament, the team practiced and scrimmaged to get ready, but Rosso said the moment they entered the stadium was something they couldn't prepare for.
"To run out onto a field in front of 30,000 people, you think you might know how it's going to feel, but then you step on the field and you're just completely taken back by it," Rosso said.
The USA team ended the tournament with a 3-4 record, but Rosso said although it was a bit disappointing, everyone improved as the weekend progressed.
For the Lady Ruggers, it was a much different experience than playing at the West Campus Pitch. Anderson said the coaches described the atmosphere in Dubai as a "carnival," with loud music playing and people dancing around in costumes. And Rosso said it was much more nerve-wracking than playing in front of parents and friends at Penn State.
"You do something great and it's electrifying, but then at the same time if you mess up, 30,000 people see it," Rosso said. "So it's a little bit intimidating, but it's something that I would never change."
But the Penn State players did have some familiar faces to ease the process. Rosso and Anderson said it helped having been teammates on the Lady Ruggers.
"It's nice because you know those people and you know what they do on the field and kind of their little tricks," Rosso said. "If you take a step back and think about it, it kind of speaks a lot for the program [Penn State] has."
Baggetta compared the number of Lady Ruggers on the team to something he heard while listening to a Penn State women's volleyball game. He heard the commentator say there was a good possibility that four Penn State players will be on the 2012 Olympic women's volleyball team, but he wasn't surprised because Penn State is the best collegiate team in the country, and he thinks it's the same with rugby.
"I think it's just kind of natural that we have so many players from one program," Baggetta said. "And I think what it says is that Penn State is one of the top women's rugby programs in the country, if not the top women's rugby program in the country."
