Greeted by strong winds and cold temperatures, the Jesuit rugby team met at Allen High School for their second North Texas Fall 7’s Rugby Tournament, co-hosted by Allen High School Eagles Rugby and the Frisco Griffins RFC.
Having won the last tournament two weeks earlier, the team was fired up and ready to go. The DII side was particularly hungry for victory as it consisted of mostly freshmen, sophomores, and several athletes playing rugby for the first time.
In their first match, Jesuit faced the determined Panther City. It was a tough
game but as Kyle Black ’13 stated, “We pressured them until they made mistakes.” Garret Stanford ‘13 made the first try of the day off a penalty at the try line lowering their opponent’s morale. By the next half yet another try was awarded when Kyle Black snuck through the defense to score another 5 points for Jesuit’s DII side. Francis Rey Hipolito ’13 followed his try with a successful conversion augmenting an additional 2 points onto the score board. The game ended in a 12 – 0 victory.
Their second match against Allen was not as successful. Using more experienced players, Allen led the game with several tries, but Jesuit, especially Andrew Frank ‘13, never gave up. “Frank, I’ve never seen so much heart on the field,” remarked the Jesuit Rugby program’s newest instructor, Coach Austin Ryan. In the second half, Garret Stanford ‘13 received the ball on the sideline and broke through the defense making the only try of the game, which won them 3rd place at the tournament. Setting the rugby team’s expectations high, Jesuit has begun 15’s rugby practice in preparation for the upcoming season in the spring semester where they will be defending as state champions.
