UW Men in National Collegiate 7’s Tournament

Jan 10

The team began training for 7’s immediately following our 15’s season finale.  Paul “Guido” Stroede had a good squad of players from the summer 7’s season as a nucleus and a small group of hopefuls to give him a player pool of more than 20 to choose from for a traveling squad of 15 eligible players.   Our win in the first Big 10 7’s Championships this August qualified us for the first ever-national championships of collegiate rugby to be held at Texas A&M in College Station, Texas.

The team met 2 days a week for 5 weeks at the indoor track for fitness training and on Saturdays and Sundays to get daylight hours on the pitch to improve passing and team defense, the critical skills for 7’s rugby.  We had some bad luck with injuries before the tourney with our stalwart forward and fall MVP, Andrew Hanske injuring a knee and another key player in our Big 10 7’s championship Tony Esealuka sidelined with a hamstring pull.  Plus 15’s flyhalf Jordi Heginbottem could not get his professor to move his Sunday morning exam time.  We travelled with 13 ambulatory players, coaches Guido and Nic Tyson, trainer Ike Eugster and 15s coach Skip Heffernan.

We had a very tough bracket that included one of the pre-tournament favorites, Life College from Atlanta, a perennial West Coast power Cal Poly and the University of Texas, who had won several matches and were very competitive at the Collegiate Rugby Championships televised on NBC the previous June from Philadelphia.  More on that tourney later as Wisconsin will be attending it in the first weekend in June 2012.

We started strong in our opening match against Cal Poly with a good scrum off their forward pass.  Ben Knight (BK) at flyhalf made a nice sidestep to cross the line under the posts but lost the ball attempting to touch down.  We regained possession on their 5-meter scrum and Ben touched down to give us a 5-0 lead.  Cal Poly was a much bigger and faster side (as were many of the teams in this tournament) and used it to win a lineout that was passed to the wing who turned on the jets to beat our winger to the corner to even the score at 5 all.  We responded with a long run by BK on the kick off. W He passed to Joel “Baby Bull” Cohen in support who outran everyone for a 40-meter try, UW up 12-5 at the half.   

Cal Poly evened the score with a break through the middle on our end caused by some hesitation on defense.  We made the mistake of taking the ball into contact and Cal turned it over and then showed good offensive handling to take a 17-12 lead.  We lost another possession on an intercepted low percentage pass that gave Cal Poly several rucks near our goal line that they eventually converted into a try to push the final score to Cal Poly 24- UW 12.

The University of Texas was next and the boys were determined not to make the same mistakes that had cost us in the 2^nd half of the previous match.  Guido’s instructions were to keep the ball away from contact and make high percentage passes away from pressure.   After a long stretch of play we worked the ball into their end and won their scrum ball and then scrum half Kurtis Shepherd scored on a nice move near the posts, 5-0 UW.  Another strong scrum near their end (we consistently pushed larger teams all tourney) and the ball came back to Kurtis who powered over for a try, 12-0 UW at the half.

Texas made a long break around the end on the opening kick off of the 2^nd half to make the score 12-7.   We kept possession off the resulting kick off and worked the ball across the field and back before scoring the middle to stretch the lead to 17-7.  The ball then changed hands a number of times with good defense from both sides.  We won a scrum, worked the ball to both sides of the field and scored in the corner to finish the match at UW 24- Texas 7.

The final match of Friday’s pool play was Life College who had won both of their previous matches; a romp over Texas and a close last second win over Cal Poly.  We moved the ball well on the opening kick off, then made the mistake of taking the ball into the tackle resulting in a turnover to Life.  They did a great job of keeping possession until they scored in the corner to take a 5-0 lead.  We continued to push Life in the scrum though we were considerably smaller.  They were however able to win a ball from a scrum on our 40 and passed to the wing who split the 2 defenders for a 10-0 lead.   Hooker Zach Arostegui then made the move(s) of the tourney with 3 forward side steps and shoulder fakes that were not quite like anything I had ever seen on a rugby pitch before.  The Life defenders were so dumbfounded they left a gap that Zach quickly ran through setting up passes to props Joel Cohen and Adam Carlson (who played every minute of every match and played well).  We then won a quick ruck and got the ball to BK who made a nice side step move to score under the posts pulling us to a respectable score of 10-7 at the half.  Life was sure this was just lucky and they would easily put us away in the 2^nd half.  Life received a yellow card for tripping just before the half, but managed to score on a great individual try while a man short early in the 2^nd half on an evasive run by their flyhalf.  They were now ahead 17-7.  We then lost our hooker Zach for the rest of the tourney with a groin/knee injury.  We continued to get good possession from scrums and worked a scrum ball from the 50 for another try after several passes back and forth across the field.  Sub prop Alec Schindler took a pick and go to the line and scrumhalf Kurtis finished it off for the score.  Replacement Ryan McGlynn made a heads up play on a Life bobble of the ensuing kick off giving us possession on their end.

We could not turn the corner on their speedy wing and a desperation pass back inside gave Life room to move.  A game saving tackle on their fastest player by Alec Schindler and BK stopped the break away and then an intercepted pass by prop Adam Carlson gave us the ball.  We then won a ruck set up by BK and passed the ball out to Ryan McGlynn who after dropping the ball behind him, made a break through the centers and ran 50 meters.  He finished with a flying leap to the corner at the goal line to beat their sweeper for a game-ending try.  The difficult conversion kick was no good and the game ended 17-17.   We were the only team that Life could not defeat on the weekend as they went on to win 3 matches on Saturday including an overtime victory in the final over Central Washington to win the national championships.

Our record of 1-1-1 on Friday kept us out of the Championship bracket but put us in the Cup (2^nd group of 8) competition for Saturday.  Unfortunately the last great series of plays by BK against Life ended in a recurrence of his foot injury that put him out for the rest of of the weekend.  Ryan McGlynn and Tim Slater were both limping and uncertain about playing the next day.

Our win or go home match on Saturday morning was against North Carolina State.  Our on line scouting done by Guido and Nic on Friday night at the hotel showed us they did not play classic 7’s but were very good at winning the ball in contact and had some good, hard runners.  We had a lot of people stepping up as first time starters but had confidence that we could execute the game plan.

We kept them under pressure on their end from the opening kick off and got an early score to lead 5-0.  More pressure on their end but a forward pass gave them a scrum near mid-field.  They were able to get the ball out to their very speedy and strong wing.  He ran around our wing who was sucked in by a break by their center, 7-5 NC State.  We kept possession for some time with flyhalf Cory Katzban making some moves and a pass to himself before Neil Warren picked up a bouncing ball and headed for the goal line, almost breaking a long try.  Their speedy wing had the angle and caught him from behind.  Our support was too late and we lost the ball.  Adam Carlson then made another intercept of a pass, Kurtis did some fancy dancing and passed to Cory who passed to Baby Bull and he outran everyone to the line for the score.  Score was 10-7 Badgers at the half.

On the 2^nd half kick off Cory passed the ball wide to Kurtis and out to wing Tim Slater who mad a break for the corner and then made the miracle pass of the tourney.  With a defender shoving him out of bounds he made a left handed behind the back pass over 2 defenders into the onrushing arms of Joel Cohen who again ran a good 50 meters for his second score in less than a minute of playing time.  NC State then made some nice runs on broken play with our defensive lines in disarray and scored to bring the score to 15-12.  We lost the ball again on our end and Kurtis made a game saving tackle near the goal line.

Kurtis then demonstrated why he was our tourney MVP with the rugby equivalent of an unassisted triple play.  They won their scrum near our goal line and he tackled the scrum half, the ball bounced to the flyhalf and Kurtis tackled him, the flyhalf passed to a forward coming around to support and you guessed it, Kurtis was back on his feet and tackled him.  On the ensuing scrum to NC State he once again pinned the arms of their scrum half preventing a good pass, the play ended in a knock on and the game was over.  Kurtis almost single-handed gave us 2 more matches for the 2^nd day.  Final score UW 15-NC State 12.

Cal Davis was our next opponent and the game began with both teams playing smart possession of the ball for long periods of time.  Cal made a football pass ½ the width of the field to get them some space and finished off a try after a nice series of passes. 7-0 Cal Davis.  Cal again kept the ball for long periods and showed patience to add another try before the half for a 12-0 halftime lead.

A break up the middle put Neil Warren and the ball in Cal’s end.  We won good possession from a scrum, ran right then brought it back left and Adam Carlson found room to touch down to bring us back within 5 points, 12-7.  We created on overload shortly after the kick-off but an errant pass that went out of bounds ended a 3 on 2 break.  We later had an ill-advised kick to lose possession and some tough defense by Cal kept us from scoring.  Final Cal  Davis12- UW 7.

Next up were the Texas Aggies.  At this point in the tourney every player had playing time and all but one had started at least one match.  We started with a long series of passes and finally lost the ball when one pass went forward.  The Aggies were very organized in defense but Joel Cohen managed a long break that ended in a knock on near their goal.    The ref blew up a couple of scrums for pushing too soon and wheeling and the Aggies capitalized with a long try in the opposite corner just before the half to lead 5-0.  A turnover after a series of nice passes near their goal gave the Aggies a length of the field break away try to put them ahead 10-0.  Some good defense by Jason Smithback on the wing strung out a break until help could arrive.  Tim Slater left with an injury giving us only 1 sub on the sidelines remaining.  The boys continued to battle taking a scrum against the head and running the ball deep into the Aggies end.  We won a scrum near midfield, passed to our wing, won the ensuing ruck and then Zack Guenthe made a nice break along the sidelines to score in the corner bringing the final score to A&M 10 UW 5.

The team showed great heart all weekend only running out of time in the last 2 matches on Saturday.  Unexpected players stepped up to help us finish 12^th in the nation out of the 24 teams in attendance.  This should give us confidence that we can play with anyone in 15’s at the nationals in the spring.  We are applying to host the playoffs in our Cottage Grove facility April 28-29. We will also be at the CRC 7’s in Philadelphia June 2-3, 2012.

The full roster for the first National Collegiate Championships in 7’s was: