Hillsdale College’s rugby team traveled to Detroit to play two games in the Ruck City tournament this past Saturday.
The first match pitted Hillsdale against an Oakland University team. The Chargers were led by three tries from former football player senior Jesse Norris and helped by another from sophomore Jake Stratman but ultimately fell on a last minute try to Oakland 29-26.
“Oakland was a pretty good match-up for us, but we’re extremely disappointed to not come away with the win,” Stratman said. “They simply had a fluke score against us and another on a bogus call, and that led directly to Oakland winning.”
Stratman filled in as kicker in place of senior Deuce Morgan. Stratman did well as a substitute, nailing three of four possible conversions, but ultimately the questionable officiating undermined the Chargers.
The questionable call arose from an Oakland scrum, but the ball was never actually placed into the scrum, and the Oakland player simply picked it up and ran in the try as the Hillsdale defenders waited for a whistle that never came.
“There was a lot of rust on our squad, and we just weren’t as sharp,” senior captain Gabe Bunek said. “Even though we were the better team, our rust definitely led to giving up some easy points to them, and those were the difference.”
The second game was an obvious mismatch as Hillsdale squared off with Detroit RFC, a men’s team. The Chargers’ strategy was to use their speed to counter the larger, older squad, but ultimately the more experienced Detroit side controlled the game and the Chargers fell, 40-5.
“We didn’t really come into the match expecting to win, because we had already played 80 minutes of rugby, and they were completely fresh, in addition to being a much better squad in terms of physicality and technical skill,” junior James DeFontes said. “It was a big mismatch, but all things considered, we played pretty well.”
Norris scored again to tally his fourth try of the day, but it was ultimately not enough to counter the strong Detroit team.
Several seniors including Bunek will graduate this spring. Jacob Barrett will take over as president of the club and be responsible for administrative and scheduling duties.
“We’ll be returning a nice core group of juniors that will be an important part of the club going forward, and Deuce is still going to be around, which will provide some veteran leadership,” Bunek said. “We’re also working with some of the rugby alumni to try and ensure support for the team, but we’re always going to need guys to come out and commit, so in that sense the challenge is still the same.”
Next week the Chargers will close out their season with an away match against a men’s side from Findlay, Ohio.
“We can beat them,” Bunek said. “They’ll be physical, but we’re getting better every day and we can use our speed. It should be a great end to the season and we’d like to go out with a win.”
