Newsletter 3/19 - Colby tournament recap and club update
Hello BRFC Family! It’s been a minute since our last newsletter, but we are back. As we are now in-season, we will be publishing a newsletter giving a recap and providing updates on what the club is up to after every game or tournament.
On Sunday, we travelled to Colby College for their Doghead 7’s tournament. The other teams at the tournament came from UMaine Farmington, University of New England, College of the Holy Cross, and of course Colby, who had three sides. The weather was adverse, with significant rain, wind, and low temperatures, but we kept our spirits up and were ready to get to work as soon as we arrived.
Our first match against UMF, one of the first of the tournament, went very well. Throughout, Bates maintained a dominance on the pitch, rarely giving up possession and not allowing any opposing tries to be scored, with a final score of Bates 22 - 0 UMF. After a rough 15’s season in the fall, it was invigorating for our first match of the tournament to be a win.
We then played Colby’s C side with our B side, giving our A side a bit of a break until the next match. Although it didn’t go as well as we would have liked (5 - 24), this match allowed many of our newer players to gain some valuable experience, and the try scored was a great team effort.
The third and final non-championship match was against Colby’s B side. We played hard, and although we had some injuries from both the first match and this one, we were still able to pull through with a shutout of Bates 22 - 0 Colby. This was extremely satisfying, especially since we had some big losses to Colby in the fall.
With our two wins, we made it into the championship bracket, playing the semi-final against Colby’s A side. From watching some of the other matches, we had figured that the Colby A and B sides were around the same level, but we still weren’t sure if we would be able to win. However, we carried the energy from the last match and shut them out again with Bates 22 - 0 Colby, bringing us to the championship final and our last game of the tournament.
Unfortunately, in our final against Holy Cross, we ended up losing Bates 10 - HC 24. By that point in the day, we had many players out to injury, and our team was pretty exhausted. However, we fought to the end and played hard, a testament to the team’s work ethic.
The tournament highlighted some of our strengths, which included our passing and speed, both of which helped us to get past the Colby and UMF defenses and score some serious points. Some players who really stood out this tournament were junior Spencer Obiero and freshman and rookie Peter Lee, both of whom played exceptionally strong offense. We have some time to recover before our next tournament, on March 30th, where we should be healed up and ready to play some good rugby. These next two weeks will be spent recovering and continuing our training.
Thanks for your support of Bates Rugby! Be sure to check out the rest of the website, as well as our socials which are linked. If you have any suggestions or questions about the club (or just want to chat!), please do not hesitate to reach out.
Best,
Hudson Svigals
Alumni Liaison
hsvigals@bates.edu
