It was a cold, windy Saturday afternoon in Bowling Green as the Falcon rugby team took the field against the Wisconsin Badgers in the quarterfinals of the Midwest Championships. Coach Roger Mazzarella and his team were fighting for a chance to move on to the sweet 16 of the National Collegiate Championships and keep their season going.
Going into this game, Wisconsin had beaten the Falcons four out of the last five games and is one of the few teams with a winning record against them.
“We have just been very unlucky against them,” Mazzarella said. The Falcons had a record of (29-2) and were ranked fifth in the nation.
Right from the get go it was a battle of defenses and the Falcons were able to get around the Wisconsin defenders to score three trys in the first half, while holding Wisconsin score less.
“Wisconsin got pinned down on their end of the field in the first half and just tried to play defensive against us,” Mazzarella said. “One of the keys was having the wind in the first half.”
To begin the scoring was Kevin Mongold scoring the try and the conversion was made by in-center Pete Cromley to give the Falcons a 7-0 advantage. Alesio DiFranco then scored later and Cromley once again hit the conversion to bring it to 14-0. The final try was scored by Alesio again on a play called the “six in”, where he cut down the middle of the field and caught the weakness in the Wisconsin defense, with Cromley hitting his third conversion and bringing it to 21-0 at the half.
The second half of the game was once again dominated by the Falcons, as the Badgers couldn’t mount a comeback.
“The Badgers play an up-the-middle style and the problem with that is the difficulty it causes them to come back,” Mazzarella said. The Falcons scored four more trys in the second half and once again held the Badgers scoreless.
Brian Virsot opened the scoring for the Falcons, but the conversion was missed bringing it to 26-0. Fly half Chad Cunnigan and Kevin Mongold added two more trys with missed conversions making it 36-0. The game’s final points came from flanker Alex Dema with Pete Cromley making his final conversion of the game to make it a 43-0 final.
With the win the Falcons move on to the Sweet 16 and will play Indiana on November second for a chance to move on to the national championships. In the meantime they will travel to East Lansing, Michigan to play at Michigan State in what the coach calls “a breather weekend.”
After the game, Coach Mazzerella talked about the win and how his team needed this victory.
“It was a game which got us over an emotional hump since it was Wisconsin and one of the teams that has had a lot of success against us,” Mazzarella said. “The importance of the game came into play too much according to myself and the Wisconsin coach.”
The coach also had a lot of praise for his players and the way they played.
“I was really impressed with our forwards, they carried the game for us,” Mazzarella said. “Wisconsin was really the first team that was able to hold us on scrums and took our guys by surprise,” said Coach.
The Falcons will now move on and get a chance to play for a trip to the national championships against the Indiana Hoosiers with their record now at 30-2 overall. It has been quite a year for this rugby team and they’ll look to keep this great season going.
