Newsletter 4/2 - UNH tournament recap and club update
Hello BRFC Family! This is our second real newsletter for the season, and it comes after our second 7’s tournament. This one will be a bit shorter than the last one, as I realized we don’t necessarily need to give a play-by-play recap of every tournament, but if that’s what you want to see, shoot me an email at hsvigals@bates.edu
On Saturday, we went to the University of New Hampshire for their annual Scott Milly 7s Tournament, named after a UNH rugger who was killed in combat a year after his graduation. This was a much larger tournament than the last one we were at, with multiple fields used for matches consecutively.
Coming into the tournament, many of our starting players were still injured from the last tournament. On top of this, we had just come off of a weeklong break and another weeklong stretch where, due to a major snowstorm, we were unable to practice outside or secure the one indoor practice facility on campus. Along with an organizational mishap on our part that forced us to forfeit the first match, we lost the rest of the matches to teams that, frankly, we could have beat with our team completely healthy. Not a great result for Bates Rugby, but we are still proud of all of the guys who made the journey out and got some good practice. Our next tournament is the Maine Cup, which is this weekend on April 6th, and will be hosted by Bowdoin. With higher numbers, we are in a better position than last tournament, and we have also been refining some of our plays during the last couple of practices, including our lineouts.
There are a few announcements I would like to share in this post. First, for everyone who ordered merch through our team store, which was open earlier this year, it should be shipping out within the next couple of days. We are sorry about the delay but admit that there was nothing we could really do about it, as we do not run the store. Second, and most importantly, we are currently working on the details and scheduling our alumni game for some time this May; we will make sure to keep you updated once it becomes finalized. You won’t want to miss it!
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
