Rugby: Vivolo Goes Out a Winner

Mamaroneck High School graduate and Washington Irving Elementary School teacher Lara Vivolo, 33, has played rugby competitively for the last 16 years but is retiring from the sport. While she will miss playing, she couldn't have picked a better note to go out on.

That's because Vivolo's last match came in a 23-20 victory against Canada in the World Cup held in England Aug. 16-Sept. 5. The win gave team USA fifth place out of the 12 countries competing in the event.

"Canada and us, we always go back and forth," Vivolo said. "We've played them six times in the past two years. It came down to who wanted more and I felt that we were stronger and held on tighter than they did. We played them twice in June in British Columbia in Vancouver Island and they beat us both times. Maybe they were a little cocky since they beat us a few months ago."

The World Cup champion New Zealand, England, Australia, South Africa, Wales, Ireland, Kazakhstan, France and Scotland were the other countries that competed for the cup.

"I am officially retired now," Vivolo said. "I may still play with older girls who aren't as competitive anymore. More to be fun and to be social. It's hard to believe I'm finished but you can't go out anymore on top then finishing after the world cup."

Vivolo, who went to SUNY Cortland and is an assistant coach for the Sleepy Hollow/Edgemont/Irvington girls swimming team, started playing rugby during her college years.

"I actually went to college for swimming so I swam on the college varsity team for four years and I played rugby in the off-season," Vivolo said. "My brother played in college so he got me started."

Vivolo said that she will miss a lot of things now that she won't be playing rugby competitively anymore.

"I will miss the discipline of knowing that I can't go out tonight because I have a two-hour workout," Vivolo said. "Rugby is very structured, it's very disciplined. I am going to miss my teammates, they were my family. I will have to make more of an effort to see them, go out to dinner and things like that. I will miss being on the field for the kick off. I have other things to replace it, I am in that stage right now."

Vivolo had a tight bond with every teammate right to the very end. She explained that in England, they did everything together as a team.

"There were 26 players, five coaches and three medical staff and we were inseparable the whole time," Vivolo said. "We were there to play rugby, that was pretty much on our mind the whole time. There wasn't much down time to do anything else. We were there to do our job. We did it well, we were happy with how it ended. We had a strong ending and our coaches were proud of us."

Vivolo said that her experience overseas was amazing.

"Words can't even describe the experience," Vivolo said. "I don't know where to start. There's just so much to talk about. It was pretty professional overall. We stayed in the housing that is going to be part of the Olympic Village in 2012. That was pretty cool. We stayed at Surrey University, which is a really big college that's southeast of London. Pretty much everything was there. They had all the fields and we had a big catering hall. Everything was done at the facility there, the Surrey Sports Club."