After starting off the season strong, defeating both Richardson and Strake Jesuit, the Jesuit Ranger Rugby squad squared off against two of the top teams around, the Woodlands and Austin Westlake. Unfortunately, neither the varsity nor junior varsity could pull out wins against these schools, losing all matches this past week.
First, Jesuit faced the Woodlands, a Houston-area team. They traveled roughly 240 miles to Alden Bridge Park where the Rangers would attempt to preserve their thus far undefeated season. However, they were met with little success as varsity lost 20-5.
It was “an extremely passionate match that just simply got away from us,” Coach Austin Ryan described, “because we didn’t finish when we were near the try line.”
Despite the loss, juniors Mark Vache and Joe Nuchereno played exceptionally well “all around the pitch,” as Coach Ryan described. And two of the top veterans on the team, Manny Salazar ’14 and David Fraire ’14, defended extremely well with their tough tackling.
Nuchereno ’15 commented on this touch loss, “Woodlands is the best defensive team we have played thus far; however, we were able to control time of possession but failed to finish on offense when close to their goal line. The game was much closer than the scoreboard would indicate. Personally, I am proud of my performance, but it takes more than playing well individually to win a rugby match.”
Chris Lanyon ’14 also was one of the game’s stand outs. When asked why Jesuit couldn’t pull out the win, he said that “the game was difficult because we were going up against a talented team that was much larger than us. They were fast and hit hard. The loss was a combination of their skill and Jesuit not starting the game at full speed.”
However, it wasn’t a total blow out, as Lanyon explained, “Jesuit’s performance in the second half was substantially better, and if we had opened with the same performance the score would have reflected our potential as a program. It was a tough loss and many people on the team were disappointed, especially myself. The best way to handle a situation like this is realize where improvements can be made and fix it. I feel that our team has already done a good job with this and I’m sure we will have a fantastic game on Saturday.”
Jesuit’s junior varsity also struggled, losing 64-0. One reason for the loss was an injury to the team’s leader, junior captain Ed Talatala. He broke his nose early on in the match. This proved disastrous to the team. “Without his voice,” as Coach Ryan explained, “the JV was disorganized and always on the back foot and under the pump.”
Coach Ryan continued: “After halftime, they regrouped and played their hearts out, but still to no avail. Tremendous hats off to Matt Peracchi ’17 who moved to a new position mid-match and performed extremely well.”
“Also hats off to Grayson Buchholz ’17 and Alex Dickey ’17 who played in their first matches,” Coach Ryan added. “Lastly, the standout JV players were Jimmy Ackles ’15 and Roman Kimbrell ’15 who were absolutely solid on defense, making punishing tackles and bruising runs.”
A week after the loss, the Rangers matched up against Westlake at Postell Stadium, where they were met with similar problems, as varsity lost 56-0.
When asked about the loss, Coach Ryan said, “We were outplayed in every aspect of the game. Simply lost to a better team. Our fitness needs to improve quickly or we aren’t going to be successful.”
Junior varsity couldn’t get the job done either, losing 58-5.
The defensive stand out was sophomore Grayson Buchholz, who tackled exceptionally well. The only score came from Alex Dickey ’16.
“Westlake’s team was big,” Dickey said,” and could tackle well. I was able to score a try because of Trevor Lastelick’s exceptional pass and the momentum we had going into the second half.”
Jesuit hopes to rebound from these tough losses this Friday, February 28 versus St. Thomas at Postell Stadium. Go out and support your Rangers.
