These Cinderellas wear cleats. After winning only one match in the last two years combined, Western Washington University’s women’s rugby team is headed for the national Division II Club Championships for the first time.

“This is definitely a Cinderella thing. I was bawling like a baby when we qualified,” said firstyear Western coach Kerry Griffin, who hasn’t been known for shedding too many tears in two decades as a fierce rugby competitor.

“I honestly can’t say enough about how proud I am,” Griffin said. “We’re in our 31st season of women’s rugby at Western, and we’ve finally reached the nationals.

“Now we each have to pay our own way to the nationals in Albuquerque, N.M., but I’m sure we will hitch-hike if we have to.”

Since rugby is a club sport at Western, each player pays $150 in basic dues and the team has to rely on sponsors and donations.

The Western Flames will join seven other teams, including the fearsome UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs, Saturday and Sunday in Albuquerque. The winners of each four-team pool will play for the title Sunday.

The Flames will open against Minnesota-Duluth.

The Flames are 6-3 including victories over the University of Washington (twice), Washington State, Oregon and Cal.

Western qualified with a 26-15 victory over Sacramento State when Western hosted the qualifying tournament at the Ferndale Polo Fields earlier this month.

Three Flames scored a try — the five-point rugby version of a touchdown — Mitra Akhaven (two), co-captain Heather Stephens and Cassie Joliff. April Fogel made three of four 2-point conversions.

The other co-captain is sophomore Megan Thompson, one of seven players with experience in high school rugby.

Griffin says one of her most enthusiastic players is Fiona O’Farrell, a 22-year-old senior, who intends to play every minute of the national tournament despite a black eye and a broken finger.

O’Farrell, a psychology major, has always been athletic. But spending much of her childhood in Dublin, Ireland, there was little thought she would play rugby.

“I lived in Ireland from age 8 to 16,” she said. “I played field hockey and netball, a sport that looks like basketball but has rules similar to ultimate Frisbee. Until I got back to the United States, I had always played in a skirt.”

Skirts, though, are definitely not part of Western women’s rugby. Neither is any protective equipment except mouth guards.

But after working in the campus bookstore alongside team captain Heather Stephens, O’Farrell decided to give the sport a try.

“Now I love rugby so much, I’m going to play it forever,” O’Farrell said. “I’ll find a team somewhere after I graduate this summer.”

Griffin and Den Hartog call the 5-foot-5, 153-pound O’Farrell “a tackling machine.”

“Full contact, full speed ahead. It’s great!” said O’Farrell.

Griffin has never stopped playing rugby since her five years on the club team at Western. She scored the school’s first try in West Coast playoff competition in 1992 and served as playercoach in 1993 and 1994.

“I remember seeing a girl in the dorm who would come back all muddy with the biggest grin,” Griffin said. “I told myself, if anyone could look like that and still smile, I’d have to check out that sport.”