Another tough loss last weekend, the young team is still having trouble playing fundamentally sound and tough rugby for the full 80 minutes. Despite spurts of solid rugby the Husker men fell short against Mizzou 32-45.____________ Disappointing start to the season at OSU. Struggled with injuries at key positions before the game even started and a light traveling squad. Look to bounce back this weekend at home against Missouri
____________ The season has been highlighted by growing pains, a team peppered with youth and a few veteran players shows great promise. Finishing games has been a challenge but a lack of experience lends to that. Early victories over Lincoln City and Iowa St. set the stage for a promising season and a strong side, but key departures and bountiful youth would show later on.
The OU game started off well with the Huskers jumping to a 10-0 lead, then the boys lost their composure in this early season match and the Sooner's experience took over and pounded out a 21-45 victory.
The K-State match was much of the same, the Husker forwards dominated the first half, in snowy and cold conditions, to take a 12-0 lead into the 50th min. K-State capitalized on a key mistakes and stormed ahead 12-19, NU mustered everything to put a try down in the corner and the conversion in the waning moments of the game to make the final 19-19. Big XII showed flashes of brilliance from budding rookies, but the weekend was signified by the team having to play 3 games back to back with no break and a thin traveling roster. The first game was an easy victory over KU, followed immediately by a "B" side(essentially the A side) match, then a ugly game against OSU. OSU was a familiar theme, start strong, then struggled to finish them off, key injuries didnt help forcing people to play out of position, OSU Won 10-21. To finish the day, the battered team faced a well rested A&M A-side who hadnt played since the morning, losing 7-57. The trip to Truman on Halloween, was a frustrating one for UNL. Once again the team dominated every phase of the game in the first half, aggressively pounding out three tries in the first half on the frightful, borderline dangerous, pitch. Again NU could not close out this game, and hole began opening in the defense and Truman slipped in several tries, while we had several blown opportunities, including a held up try, and several penalties on both try lines. Truman won for the first time in four years 15-28. Finally this week, the Husker boys are looking to close out the fall season with a strong victory in a league match against KU in Lawrence before the football game. The Spring Season looks promising as everything starts to come together, should be a much more efficient team. ______________________________
The Huskers have been training for Cornhuskers State Games 7's this summer and are ready for the big weekend. Several sides have been entered: UNL (premier division) and UNL Big Experiment (Open division), plus several talented and imposing UNL Rugby Alumni sides. Under less than ideal weather, on an impeccable pitch, and with a raucous home crowd, the Huskers closed out the season in sufficient fashion. In the first game against Wayne, the Huskers started off slow, knocking off the rust from 3 weeks off. They started firing on all cylinders mid-way through the first half, pumping out three quick tries, behind a terrorizing forward pack to jump up 17-0. The boys put another one in before half, sitting at 22-0 at the half. The second half was highlighted by departing senior Prop, Brandon Smid, slicing and dicing through the demoralized Wayne defense for several tries. To close the game, the fleet footed Aaron West, knocked it on, unbenounced to the referee, for his zulu try, putting the final score at 45-0. In the final game against Creighton the Huskers started right where they left off, with #8 Eric hagen taking the opening kick-off back for a try. Unfortunately it only got uglier, scoring a few more tries in the first few minutes. The back line had its way with the blue birds as well, scoring at will, as if it were on a playstation. With most of the B side in for the second half, the scoring came to an end with a fantastic display of athleticism for another zulu try by Drew Cuiffo. Final score 44-8. After a hard but successful day of rugby, the boys put the season in the books with the Rugby Prom later that night. -------------- The first annual Red-White-Black Sevens Megabowl, on the friday before the spring game, was a blazing success. The Black team won, taking the cup in dramatic fashion. Defeating soundly the 'statistically unstoppable' white team by a large margin. Then continued by capping the night by embarrassing the red team highlighted by the nimble footed Prop, Brandon Smid, chip and chasing, and outrunning a swift back, Tom Brezinski, for a humiliating try. Eightman and resident 7's hooker also had the run around scoring numerous tries, overall a successful night for all. The red team, captained by Martin Downes, won the plate. The white team, captained by Chris 'underarmor' Casper, pulled it up the rear by claiming the bowl. The victorious black team was captained by Jake Grasmick
-------------- Huskers won soundly against Principia 40-0 in the first game of the round of 32. They continued their winning ways by defeating a strong Harlequins team out of Milwaukee 34-5 to advance to the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinal match Nebraska faced Metropolis a sharp Mens Club out of Minneapolis but a long day of rugby took its toll on the team and lost 7-17. Metropolis ended up dominating in the semi-finals and final to win the tournament. -------------- The Huskers travel to St. Louis this weekend (4/4) for Ruggerfest. -------------- UNL finished the league season this semester a perfect 4-0, defeating K-State 29-24 behind another dominating performance from the forward pack. -------------- Nebraska won sloppily against a good Truman team, 37-22, under the lights on friday night. -------------- This weekends game against Truman St. has been moved to Friday(3/6) at 7PM under the lights. -------------- With the highs in the low 20's, a bitter North wind, and 5 inches of snow on the ground, Nebraska lost a sloppy game with Minnesota, 14-27. -------------- Nebraska won a hard fought, back and forth, match behind a dominating forward pack against Oklahoma, winning 29-27 on Saturday. Finished Sunday with a dominating victory against OSU 58-0. -------------- SPRING 2009 SCHEDULE IS STILL BEING PIECED TOGETHER BUT IS POSTED -------------- UNL came out strong and took 3rd at the Big XII Tournament. Beating Texas Tech 38-0, falling to Texas A&M 12-29, and defeating Iowa State 31-22 in the 3rd place game. -------------- As always, the Nebraska Rugby Club is looking for athletes interested in the great sport of rugby to join the club! For contact information, email Jeff Hunter at: jwh.bigred@gmail.com!
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