SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio – Notre Dame College Director of Rugby Operations Jason Fox has announced that Vanessa Marsh will take over as head coach of the women's rugby program. After leading Baldwin Wallace University to an Ohio Valley Conference title last year, Marsh will take over an NDC program that finished the 2022 fall campaign as the national runner-up in Division I National Collegiate Rugby (NCR).
 
"NDC is excited to have Vanessa Marsh become the next women's head coach," Fox said. "She brings years of competitive playing and coaching experience to the college."
 
Marsh has been a part of the rugby community for more than two decades, first as a player and more recently as a coach. She first discovered rugby while on a six-month trip in New Zealand, and then began her playing career when she returned to the United States. Initially playing for several teams in the northeast region of the U.S. over more than a dozen years, Marsh eventually moved to the midwest and continued her career in Cleveland.

She helped start the Cleveland Rugby Coalition while playing with the Midwest Thunderbirds in 2019, before retiring as a player to focus more time on coaching.
 
Her coaching career began in 2017 with the Brunswick Valkyries. The Valkyries put together a three-peat in 7s from 2017-19 and won back-to-back 15s state titles in 2021 and 2022. But, she says the greatest accomplishment was having more than twenty players go on to play collegiate rugby.

The next step was taking over a collegiate program, and she did that during the 2022-23 season at Baldwin Wallace University. Last year, BW won the OVC title and Marsh was named Conference Coach of the Year. She led the Ohio Valley Conference All-Star team in Texas to their best finish ever in January 2023 and helped coach the Ohio Elite U23 team at the Coaches Challenge LAU Tournament in May 2023.

The NDC women's rugby program has had plenty of success over the past two seasons. Holding a .769 win percentage since the start of the 2021-22 campaign, Notre Dame has totaled five wins in the D1 NCR Tournament, winning back-to-back regional titles and finishing as a top three team in the country, twice.