The Grape Bowl added a new sport to its repertoire on Saturday.

The ancient earth and concrete stadium next to the Grape Festival grounds near downtown Lodi has hosted football from youth to semipro, the same with soccer, and many marching band competitions. It was the venue for the infamous Cash Bowl, when Stanford quarterback Bob Celeri and University of the Pacific quarterback Eddie LeBaron paid former teammates to join them as they settled their bragging rights.

On Saturday, it was home to rugby union, also known as rugby 15s, as part of the inaugural season of Women's Elite Rugby. The pro league features six teams from across the country, and the Bay Breakers, who call the Grape Bowl home, entertained a happy crowd of rugby enthusiasts by crushing the Twin Cities Gemini 66-12 in their home opener.

The victory was a good sign for a team that opened on the road with a 63-7 loss at the Denver Onyx a week before.

“There's a lot that's gonna happen over this season, so last week was just to get an idea where we're at, and we approached it that way,” said Bay Breakers coach Hannah Stolba, who made 12 international appearances for Team USA during her playing career. “And now we're trying to put some pieces together, so it certainly was cathartic for us to make that stamp right away that shows we can score points, because I think that's what we didn't get to show last week.”

It did not take long for the Breakers to make a statement about what kind of day it was going to be. In the first minutes of the game, Isabela Gonzalez Berazueta Burgos started a run on her own side of the field, then passed pack to Laura Thacker, who got the ball to Bulou Mataitoga. The back three then carried the ball untouched into the try zone and set it down for five points. A kick by Leyla Alev Kelter finished the seven-point play.

“It kind of set the tone for the rest of the game and brought the energy,” said back row player Roxelle Thomas, who is a school teacher off the rugby field. “It was a hard game, the last game, but it was a good team that we got to play first and it kind of set us up for the rest of our games.”

Mataitoga scored again in the 17th minute, taking a pass after a line-out throw. After some back and forth, Twin Cities got into the try zone in the 33rd minute against a stiff Bay defense, but the kick failed, leaving the score at 14-5.

Meanwhile, the Breakers were getting their feet under them, leading to a pair of tries in the final minutes of the first half — a Mona Lisa Tupou dive into the try zone as defenders closed in, and a similar play by Paris Hart. The Breakers went into halftime with a 26-5 lead.

Both Stolba and Thomas said the difference in the team's first two games was the defense.

“We were really looking to put more pressure on them, so getting up and when that ball's out, making sure that we were pressuring them,” Stolba said. “Because we sort of waited a little bit, and we still did it a bit here today, we were waiting for other teams to make decisions and we want to make sure we're making those decisions for them with our defensive pressure.”

Thomas referred to the fold, or how quickly the team can establish a defensive line behind the ruck after a tackle goes to the ground.

“We talked about our fold, folding too much around the ruck, or not folding enough,” Thomas said. So actually taking a look up and not just looking at the ball, we worked on that a lot this week, and it showed today.”

Thomas started playing rugby as a student at Saint Mary's College in Moraga (“Go Gaels,” she made sure to add) when some friends from the gym dragged her to a tryout.

“I knew nothing about it. I really liked the community that rugby brings, and that kind of kept me around. I just love the game,” she said. “I love the community on the field, talking with everyone, encouraging, and I think it's a great sport for women, providing that kind of support that we don't necessarily always have with our body.”

Thomas said she didn't expect to keep playing once her college career was over.

“I thought four years of college and I would be done,” she said. “Then I got to my last year and realized you could continue playing with clubs, so I did that with our Women's Premier League, which was the highest level you could play in the United States, and now it's Women's Elite Rugby is the highest league.”

On Saturday, the second half continued the same as the first half, with heavy-hitting defense leading to two scores in the first 11 minutes. Bay captain Jade McGrath got into the try zone in the fourth minute, snagging an interception at midfield and running it all the way, and Abby Vogel scored in the 10th minute, taking a pass out of the ruck. Kat Clark converted the kick on both.

“We were coming into this focused on the things that we needed to do, and defensively, one of those big focuses was staying intense,” Stolba said. “And we did that through multiple phases today, which is not something we did last week. We were able to make a few more tackles and put a little more pressure on them.”

With Twin Cities foiled for a second try until late in the game, the points kept coming for the Breakers — a try on a long run from Roz Okpara, who was closely chased by three defenders the whole way; another long run from Mataitoga, her third of the day; a short score from Burgos, and another short run from Tonya Wessman pushed the Breakers' score to 66.

The Breakers (1-1) now embark on a stretch of three road games — at the New York Exiles on April 13, a rematch at Twin Cities on April 25, and at the Chicago Tempest on May 3 — before returning home to the Grape Bowl to host the Boston Banshees on May 10.