The U.S. women’s rugby sevens shocked the world, and an Upper Merion alum lent a key hand
Ariana Ramsey, from Bridgeport, set up Alex Sedrick's stunning run-and-try to win the U.S. the bronze medal. And maybe start rugby on a path to popularity in America.
SAINT-DENIS, France — The thing about rugby is that time can go on forever, or seem to. As long as the referees overseeing a match insist that play is not dead, the match continues, even if the game clock has expired. This is how metaphor and reality melded into a single stunning moment Tuesday night at Stade de France — the United States vs. heavily favored Australia in the bronze-medal game of the women’s sevens. It began when Ariana Ramsey, out of Bridgeport and Upper Merion High School, with the U.S. down five, got her hands on the ball.
Ramsey dug it out of a scrum and, though hurrying and desperate, pitched it to the right, to her teammate Alex Sedrick. None of that chaos, Ramsey remembers. Her memory picks up at the instant Sedrick caught the ball roughly 80 meters from the try line. Once Sedrick blasted through two would-be tacklers, hurdling one, she was running, running, running, alone ahead of everyone — some 65,000 people in the stands shouting and screaming out of surprise and wonder and total disbelief.
“There were four girls on her,” Ramsey said, “and I was right behind her, trying to support her in case she got tackled. Five meters from the try zone, I was like, ‘OK, I can slow down now.’”
Sedrick crossed into the try zone, then kicked the ball through the uprights for a two-point conversion for a 14-12 U.S. victory, the first Olympic medal in the national program’s history. Had the Americans won the gold medal — New Zealand did, beating Canada in the final match — in a more conventional, less electrifying manner, it might not have had the cultural effect that Sedrick’s dash for glory surely will. Imagine the sheer number of Instagram reels to come.
“Sevens is like that,” U.S. coach Emilie Bydwell said. “It’s crazy. It comes down to the wire, especially in pinnacle events like this. But what the American public should know is that we play on a world series, seven or eight tournaments a year, and you get this level of competition. While a pinnacle event’s got higher stakes, it’s this exciting all the time. I hope people see how hard it is, how fun it is to watch, how exhilarating it can be because of what they just saw.”
Along the U.S. sideline, as Sedrick was sprinting by, Kristen Thomas jumped to her feet off the bench and threw her hands on her head. “Oh, my goodness, I did not think I would be here today,” said Thomas, a Hallahan High alum who was on the national team’s roster for the 2020-21 Summer Games in Tokyo and was an alternate on this team. “I used to watch the Olympics all the time when I was younger and in high school. I remember watching Katie Ledecky swim at the Olympics. I never thought I’d have the opportunity to go to three Olympic events in different capacities. It’s pretty surreal to be here.”
New Zealand, which beat the U.S., 24-12, in the semifinals earlier Tuesday, had been favored to win the tournament, and it met those expectations, obviously. But Australia was considered clearly the No. 2 contender. If the Aussies’ 21-12 loss to Canada in the semis was merely an upset, the Americans’ victory was an earthquake tremor, considering the sport is still trying to break through in the mainstream in the United States and earn respect from the rest of the world.
“We beat the ‘second-best team in the world,’” said Ramsey, who is 24 and graduated from Dartmouth in 2022. “That’s insane. It’s groundbreaking. Everything about this game was groundbreaking. It makes it an even bigger story.”
The potential for growth in women’s rugby is not some fantasy. Even before Tuesday’s bronze medal game, the U.S. team had penetrated the modern viral culture. Ilona Maher, the team’s standout center and its biggest — she is 5-foot-10 and 198 pounds — and most physical player, has more than 1.7 million followers between her Instagram and TikTok accounts. And during Tuesday afternoon’s semifinals, Jason Kelce was hanging out in the team’s official suite inside the stadium.
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“A lot of the girls went to go see him,” Ramsey said. “It was either Jason Kelce or our families, and I went to see my family.
“It’s kind of unreal. Coming from Upper Merion to the Olympics, I feel like I helped put us on the map. I put King of Prussia on the map — Philadelphia in general. I feel like I’m making history. I feel like I’m making a huge impact and inspiring a lot of people. That’s my goal.”
Ramsey had reached out to Upper Merion recently, actually, offering to host a rugby camp. “I’m like, ‘Hey, I went there,’” she said. “They forwarded me to someone, and that someone never got back to me.” Expect a call, Ariana. After Tuesday, expect a lot of calls.