The BG rugby club hosted its annual winter banquet to celebrate the team’s fall season and standout players.

The event included award presentations to honor the team’s success from last fall’s season. The club also inducted two former players into the BG Rugby Football Club Hall of Fame — Jeff Weemhoff and Reed Luecke.

Twelve rewards were handed out to players to remember the achievements in a specific category.

The rookie of the year award was split between two standout freshmen, Mitch Sora and Matt Marquette. Sora was forced into the lineup after Marquette was injured and missed the rest of the season with bone fractures in his face.

The other freshman awarded was Mike Powell, whose breakthrough performance came against Western Michigan when he recorded three conversion kicks and a penalty kick. He was voted man of the match by his teammates.

Alex Garnaut has come a long way to achieve the most improved player award. Garnaut is a transfer student from Australia.

“I thought, ‘Wow, it looks like we finally got our guy that can bring the style of rugby we want to this program,’ but it turned out that he did not know a lick of rugby,” said Tony Mazzarella, head coach, with a laugh.

Since then, Garnaut learned enough to earn his teams most improved player award.

The team had a sense of who earned the most valuable player award.

Mauer scored a total of 160 points in the fall season, including 22 tries and 25 conversions. He was a key piece to the team’s puzzle for success.

“It means a lot to be included in a category with players like Nick Viviani and my brother Rocco,” Mauer said. “I owe a lot of my success to those two who helped me get this far.”

Coach Mazzarella announced that BG will host the Final Four for the national tournament this spring, and the team has already locked up a spot in the national tournament.