UMW 54 – Univ of MD 15

UMW traveled to College Park Saturday to play the University of Maryland on a perfect day for rugby.

UMW scored 10 trys to MD’s 2 and in the end it turned out to be a game of quite a few handling errors inter-dispersed with some flashes of brilliance.

Both MD and UMW had some tough times early holding onto the ball and play was just a bit wild. UMW’s forwards, led by Matthew Gordon started wearing MD thin though and around the 20 minute mark and a 0-0 tie was broken by Gordon himself smashing over the line.

After Gordon’s score UMW found their rhythm and Bradlee Nichols scored the first try on a nice run. Nichols was followed by a try from UMW’s flanker Joseph Callery and then Nichols scored again before MD’s 8-man closed out the first half with a try. At halftime it was UMW 20 to MD’s 5.

Despite being up by 15 UMW was plagued by poor handling and missed kicks – what kept them alive was some excellent kicking by sophomore flyhalf Michael Sacks and their usual stout defense led by Sacks, 8-man Gordon, lock Andrew Lamarca and prop Tucker Chewning. Sophomore hooker Jack Levine was also very active in contact making numerous runs off breakdowns and digging out a lot of ball. He and Callery were very active sideline to sideline. UMW’s normally deadly accurate kickers missed all 4 attempts in the first half (and their first 4 in the second).

MD started the 2nd half by kicking a penalty and the score was UMW 20 to MD’s 8. UMW then proceeded to score try’s at the 46th, 48th, 55th, and 59th minute by Nichols (his third), Callery (his second), Alec Charoenthep (after he came on as a sub), and Nichols again (his 4th).

MD countered with a converted try to make the score 40-15 in UMW’s favor. Next UMW’s #15 Harry Master’s scored a nice slashing try at the 67th minute and UMW made the conversion. Finally, big #10 Michael Sacks bulled his way through some MD defenders and scored a try to the right of the posts, UMW converted, and the day ended UMW 54 – MD 15.

Men of the Match were freshman center Seamus Brennan who played well all day and moved the ball wide and rucked and tackled well and sophomore Bradlee Nichols – scoring 4 try’s was no small feat but he also played excellent defense and attacked aggressively all day from the wing.

UMW is now 3-0 in conference and will host Towson for homecoming Oct 20th at the Battlefield in Fredericksburg.

(Photos courtesy of Susan Pak)

In the second match in the Futures Cup competition, UMW was facing MD’s undefeated team. UMW prevailed in this shootout, winning 58-40 with some strong play and leadership from try scorers Joseph Ritter, Peter Smith and Cade Smith. The Futures Cup team is now in second place in the league despite playing 1 less game than MD.