Middlebury College Rugby Club

This Saturday Middlebury, the New England #2 seed, takes on the New York #2 seed, Hamiltion, at the Tree Farm fields in Essex Junction (click here for directions).  Kick-off at 1 PM.  It will be the end of the season for one of the teams with the winner going on to the NRU Championship weekend at UMass-Amherst on November 14 and 15 where the top 3 out of the 4 teams competing will qualify for the National tournament in the spring. The MCRC will be looking forward to the return of some key starters (7 starters were missing from their last game) but they may be without the services of others who were injured in this past weekend’s games.   Playoff time is when teams show their depth and Middlebury is certainly being tested on this front but when the whistle blows there are no excuses – the 15 on the field are the 15 on the field.

In the New England Championship Final Middlebury lost to UMass by 34 points to 3.

UMass scores early in the first half and shows absolute dominance in the scrum, which continued throughout the game – the Midd pack were only able to win 1 or 2 of their own scrums let alone compete on UMass’ scrums.  Middlebury responds with a penalty kick and with less than a minute left in the second half the score is 3 – 5 to UMass – anyone’s game…but the Middlebury defense falls asleep in the dying seconds of the half and lets a fast UMass backline run from one end of the field to the other and then use their powerful forwards to punch home the converted try: 3 – 10 at halftime.  That late 1st half try swung the control of the game wholly in UMass’ favor.

Poor tackling from Middlebury in the second half and strong running from the UMass team saw the floodgates open and Middlebury struggled to stay in the game.  The Middlebury players fought all game and despite the loss their are some positives to take away…many lessons to learn.

As difficult as this loss is The MCRC has to move on and move on quickly as they will be playing a knock-out game this coming Saturday in the North East Quarterfinal against Hamilton followed by the North East Semis & Finals the following weekend.  A loss this coming Saturday will be the end to their season and goodbye to a 4th consecutive Nationals run in the Spring – the next two weeks will be a true test of Middlebury’s character.

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In their second meeting of the year Middlebury again overcomes a resilient UVM team in a nail-biter.  Despite missing several regular starters due to injury The MCRC get the “W” and go on to the New England Final tomorrow.  Forwards captain Chris Mutty scores a try from a quick tap early in the game.  Sirkia converts and goes on to hit 3 penalty kicks maintaining his almost 100% record for the year (he has missed 1 penalty kick this year).  UVM scores 2 unconverted tries – one in the first half and another in the second as they rallied.  Final score 16 – 10.

In the other New England Semi-Final UMass-Amherst comes back from behind to beat Boston University 22 – 12 (5 – 12 at the half).   This sets up a Middlebury vs. UMass final at 1 PM Saturday, November 1 at the Tree Farm fields in Essex Junction (click here for directions).  UVM will play BU at 11 AM to determine seedings for the North East playoffs and with home field advantage at stake both games are crucial – number 1 & 2 will play at home next weekend – 3 & 4 will have to travel.  Head to head and then point difference will be used to decide the #2 seed from the two teams that end up with 1 win & 1 loss over this weekend – so UVM and BU can still win home field advantage for next weekend.

This weekend Middlebury will host Boston University, UMass-Amherst & UVM in the New England Rugby Division II Collegiate Men’s Championship.  On Saturday Middlebury takes on UVM at 11 AM followed by #2 seed BU against the #3 seed UMass at 1 PM – both games will be held at the Middlebury College Rugby Field and look to be crackers!

On Sunday the losers of Saturday’s games will play each other in the 3rd place play-off at 11 AM followed by the Championship final at 1 PM.  These games will be played at the Tree Farm Facility in Essex Junction (click here for directions)  as the Middlebury field is likely to take a pounding from the rain and Saturday’s games.

All 4 teams will progress to the North East Quarterfinals and a chance at one of the 3 North East spots in the National tournament in the spring. This weekend will determine who gets home advantage for those quarterfinal games and who has to make the long trips to New York to take on the other North East teams.  And of equal importance the New England Champions will be crowned!  Middlebury has won 7 of the last 8 New England Championships; Yale broke the streak in 2004.

Tags: game, home, NERFU

This weekend was a true test of character for Middlebury as they faced a team who had certain players willing to resort to illegal and dirty tactics – important to note that this was not true of the entire U-Maine team but the few culprits made for an unpleasant encounter to say the least.  Driving wind, constant rain and 45 degree weather made for a tough day all round and tended to slow down our usually overwhelmingly fast play.  Nonetheless, The MCRC took the lead within 3 minutes and never looked back.

Tags: game, home, NERFU, playoffs, score

Time Change: The MCRC will be playing University of Maine-Orono at 11 AM this Saturday, October 24, 2009 in the New England Championship Quarterfinal.

The sun was shining but Middlebury made it rain.  Where to begin…1st try of the game came within 59 seconds of the opening kick-off.  The most impressive part of Middlebury’s performance was their ability to keep up the pressure throughout – playing 80 minutes of smart, tactically sound, champagne rugby.  It’s easy for the dominant team to take their foot off the accelerator and to start playing scrappy, frantic, “white line fever” rugby in the second half but Middlebury focused in at half time with the game well won and came out still at 100% despite making the full list of substitutions allowed – great depth within The Blue!

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Tags: home, regular season, score

After the alumni game on Saturday, October 17 The MCRC drew the winner of the annual fall raffle – congratulations to Dennis and Nancy Meany, parents of former A side prop Sean “El Real” Meany ‘08 and current A side center Colin Meany ‘11.  Former forwards captain Luke “Moose” Yoquinto drew the winning ticket before an expectant crowd of ticket buyers.

The Meany’s have won 2 return plane tickets from Boston (Logan) to Dublin, Ireland, 3 nights hotel accommodations in Dublin and 2 tickets to the Ireland vs. South Africa game on November 28, 2009 but still have the option of choosing to take the alternative cash prize of US$1000.

Thanks to everyone who supported The MCRC through buying raffle tickets – major thanks to Deb Anderson in the Middlebury box office for working with us to make the raffle tickets available online.  Look out for our next raffle in the spring – details to come.

Tags: parents, raffle

Not that the result was ever in question (at least not in the minds of the alums): the Middlebury alumni team, The Legends, beat a resilient Middlebury B side on Saturday, October 17 after the Williams games.  Final score was 22 – 0 with tries scored by Dom Coulson ‘94, Matt Volz ‘07 and Muchadei Zvoma ‘07, 2 conversions and 1 drop goal by Craig “Sparta” Wilson ‘07.5.  Huge thanks to the Killer B’s for giving the old boys a great game (and for putting up with the cavalier attitudes of the younger alumni).

The highlight play of the game produced the first points: an outlandish drop goal by Craig “Sparta” Wilson ‘07.5 – the infamous “Joe Bergan” lives on.  The Alumni team had quickly worked their way into the Killer B’s 22 after having kicked off and won a scrum within striking range.  With pace (and arrogance) to spare in the alumni backline the students must have expected the old men to run the ball wide – clearly they did not take the arrogance fully into consideration: 9 man Robinson ‘85 makes the open side pass to Silverman ‘09 at fly-half, Silverman dummies the open pass and swings it back inside to fullback Wilson behind the scrum – Wilson drills the drop goal home and may need to change his last name to Wilkinson (Johnny that is)!

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Tags: Alumni, homecoming, parents, supporters

Middlebury had this away game wrapped up by the end of the half leading 45 – 0 after 40 minutes.  9 tries for the Blue with a hatrick in the first half coming from backs captain Eddie “Laser” Cahill.  Forwards captain Chris Mutty also got in on the scoring as did 9 man Don Song ‘13, winger Sam Harrison ‘11, fullback Geoff Kalan ‘12.5, winger Kennedy Mugo ‘12 and lock Andrew Crawford Jones ‘12.5.  Flyhalf Brian “The Try Guy” Sirkia ‘12.5 went 6 for 9 on conversions and 3 for 3 on penalty kicks.

The 2nd most important factor in the big win for the Blue came from the Middlebury forwards:

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Tags: away, game, regular season, score