MEN’S RUGBY ROUNDUP: Marauders open OUA season with Labour Day win
KINGSTON, Ont. – While Labour Day festivities raged on campus, the Marauder men's rugby team was on its first roadtrip of the young season, battling the RMC Paladins in Kingston. McMaster built a commanding 29-point lead, and outlasted an RMC comeback bid to win their opener 36-24.
Monday, September 1
McMaster 36 @ RMC 24
KINGSTON, Ont. – While Labour Day festivities raged on campus, the Marauder men's rugby team was on its first roadtrip of the young season, battling the RMC Paladins in Kingston. McMaster built a commanding 29-point lead, and outlasted an RMC comeback bid to win their opener 36-24.
Rookie Casey Bouk led the Marauders with two tries on Monday, while Connor Mabbott, Matt Nicol and Graham Dobbs each contributed a try of their own.
The home side opened the scoring in the first half, pushing the scrum into the endzone and converting to take a 7-0 lead. But a penalty minutes later allowed James Leveridge to bite into that deficit with a three-point kick, and he was in the middle of things once again when his cross-field kick found Bouk in stride, and the rookie carried in for the try to snatch the lead for McMaster.
Bouk continued to shine in his first competitive appearance, jarring the ball loose with a thunderous hit and allowing Mabbott to steal and break the plane for McMaster's second try of the match. With momentum now firmly in their favour, the Marauders added to their tally before halftime, as Mitch Lisanti broke the line and dished to Nicol for the team's third try and a 22-7 lead at the interval.
Lisanti played the role of creator once again as the teams resumed play, finding the rampant Bouk, who crossed the line for his second try of the afternoon. Taking advantage of a man-advantage, the Marauders scored their final points of the afternoon when Mitch Salisbury broke through the line and found Dobbs on the run, who crossed into the endzone to extend McMaster's lead to 36-7.
Three successive tries from the Paladins made things interesting in the closing stages, but the Marauders' lead proved insurmountable as they went on to win their first match of the season.
Wednesday, Sept. 3
Laurier 23 @ Waterloo 14
WATERLOO, Ont. - Waterloo men's rugby lost 23-14 to the Laurier Golden Hawks in the Battle of Waterloo in their home opener on Wednesday at the CIF field.
Laurier's offensive dominance led by Kyle Spicer helped overcome a strong first-half push by the Warriors. Aaron Goodridge (Waterloo) and Kyle Kramer each scored a try while Jason Park and Kyle Kramer each added a convert in the loss.
Laurier's Kyle Spicer scored a penalty goal in the early stages of the game to take an early 3-0 lead. Waterloo's Aaron Goodridge (Waterloo) answered with the Warriors first try of season minutes later followed by an impressive convert by Jason Park to put Waterloo ahead 7-3.
The Warriors would pad their lead shortly after with a powerful push from Kyle Kramer to extend their lead 12-3. Aaron Goodridge (Waterloo) would add 2 more points with a successful convert after a generous bounce from the uprights to go ahead 14-3.
The Golden Hawks Tomas Larouche and Kyle Spicer would each add a penalty goal to shorten the gap to 14-8 before the first half concluded.
The second half opened with strong defensive play from both squads with possession changing often. Joshua Clayton of Laurier would push through Waterloo's defence to give Laurier their second lead of the game at 16-14. The convert was converted by Kyle Spicer to go ahead 18-14.
Laurier wouldn't look back after an impressive kick and retrieve play by Kyle Spicer in the dying stages of the game to extend the Hawks lead to 23-14. Laurier would stand tall and win the Battle of Waterloo 23-14 to go to 1-0 on the season.
Brock 3 @ Guelph 47
GUELPH, Ont. – The University of Guelph Gryphons men's rugby team opened their season with an impressive 45-3 victory against the Brock Badgers on Wednesday night at Varsity Field.
"It was a solid team performance tonight and we are happy with the result," said head coach Darrell Devine. "There is a quick turn around until next game so we look forward to getting back to work in preparations."
The Gryphons opened up scoring early on in the first half scoring a try and a successful convert to make it 7-0 against the Badgers. The Gryphons would score again shortly after with another try and a conversion to make it 14-0. Guelph was able to keep possession of the ball, keeping Brock from setting up a scoring opportunity.
However, Brock was able to gain momentum before the end of the half scoring a penalty goal making it 14-3 for the Gryphons. Guelph responded shortly after with another try and a successful conversion to make it 21-3 going into the break.
Guelph continued their momentum scoring shortly into the second half of the game making it 28-3 very early on. Brock would start to gain some speed later on in the second half of the game, but the Gryphons were able to keep possession of the ball and maintain the physicality of play to keep the Badgers from putting any more points on the board.
Jeremy Wright (Fenelon Falls, Ont.) and Adam Maahs (Port Perry, Ont.) would end the game with two tries each, leading the team in scoring. Joe Newman (Waterdown, Ont.) would closely follow with four conversions, totaling eight points for the Gryphons. Eric Howard (Ottawa, Ont.), Taylor Zak (Oshawa, Ont.), and Martin Damianoff (Guelph, Ont.) would score a try each, with Nathaniel Stein (Guelph, Ont.) successfully converting once to contribute to the 45-3 final for the Gryphons.
Toronto 3 @ Western 82
LONDON, Ont. – Head coach David Knowles got his career and regular season off to a good start on Wednesday night as the Western Mustangs men's rugby team defeated the Toronto Varsity Blues 82-3 in their season opener at Alumni Field.
"There is a lot of talent here, a lot of good guys. I'm impressed with the potential we have here," said Knowles following his first win as Mustangs head coach.
The Mustangs got off to a fast start, opening the scoring just over a minute into the game off of a try from Kevin Catliff at 1:45 before Mark Denton followed up with the convert to give the Mustangs a 7-0 lead. Denton added another try and convert only moments later to extend Western's lead before the Varsity Blues responded with a penalty goal at 8:43 to make it 14-3 for the purple and white.
Unfortunately for the Varsity Blues that would be their only points of the night as Western went on to record another 26 points in the first half, followed by 42 in the second to take the game by an 82-3 score.
Topping the Mustang scoreboard were Justin Chan and Mike Santangeli who each earned 15 points, followed closely by Peter Milazzo with 10 points.
With the first win of the season under their belts, Knowles has one main goal for his team as he looks towards the remainder of the season.
"I have an expectation to win gold," said coach Knowles, "they've been in the finals many years, five straight years and the last three were losses. My expectation is to keep improving what we've got and build on it."
