To all,

Having spent the last week wallowing in the sun in Aruba, I wanted to let you know how the TU rugby team did over the last two weekends.  Last Saturday we hosted Catholic University for our first home game in the last two seasons.  It was a glorious day, temperatures in the 70’s, and a crowd of between 200 – 300 spectators.  Catholic finished just above us in the final standings last season and we wanted to make a statement about who the better team was. We dominated the game from the first whistle and were leading 20 – 0 at the half.  We continued to run the ball wide and scored several tries in the corner of the end zone.  When you have a team down at the half you want to keep them down and not let them back into the game.  We scored two more tries and a conversion to take the lead 32 – 0.  To Catholics credit they continued to play hard and their forwards did a nice job of playing small ball and finally scored a try in the waning moments to avert the shut out. Final score 32 – 7.

The B side is getting stronger each week due to the exceptional number of new players we have added.  The competition level is rising and many of the A side players are looking over their shoulders.  The Beavers continued our dominance and posted another shout out with a final score of 36 -0.  More importantly we had a slew of new players play in their first game.  We had so many players that we had to substitute the entire squad at the half. We then had to bring in some new players half way through the second half.  All told, we had 50 players participate in our two lopsided victories.  It has been a long time since we have had over 3 and 1/2 sides.  We have resurrected both the Cougars and Darvon kids(C & D sides).

The boys ruined my vacation plans.  I was so stoked by the weekend results that I didn’t want to miss this weeks practice and the upcoming game at home against Old Dominion.  Alas, I suffered through a week on the beach in the Caribbean.  The boys were never far from my thoughts.

On this past Saturday we played a well regarded Old Dominion team and had similar results.  Unfortunately I can’t provide any color commentary as I was not there.  We continued to use our backs, I think the best in our league, and scored several tries by getting the ball to our wings. The final score was 34 – 18.  This was not an easy victory as ODU had a very large pack and maintained possession for much of the game. When we do get the ball we make things happen.  It would be nice to have a couple of 6′5″ , 240lbs, second rows but that’s not who we are.  We have a small and gifted pack who can score often.

The B side won their game as well, although I don’t know the details.

We are now 4-1 after five games with our only loss coming to Navy’s A side.  The B side sports a similar record.  We have over 50 players on the roster but have lost several players to injuries over the last few weeks.  We lost two A side players this weekend and will have to use our depth to fill in these spots.  We are headed to a tournament in Howard county this week and may end up playing some of our arch rivals, UMBC or Salisbury.  It will be interesting to see how far we have come since last fall.

That is all for now.  Expect to see and update on the reunion weekend in the next few days.

Cheers,

Don