The BG rugby team will be hosting Northern Illinois in BGSU’s Doyt Perry Football Stadium at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday. The undefeated 9-0 ruggers have found the home of BGSU football to be a very good venue for the Falcons as they have pegged four losses on the likes of Michigan and Ohio State using the turf field.
“Everyone is anxious to get back into the routine after our mid-season break,” said rugby vice captain Mike Brown. “It was nice to have a chance to heal up those injuries like hamstring pulls and ankle twists, but it is time to start bearing down on our ultimate goal–which is a national championship.”
The Falcons last played September 28 after beating Cincinnati 53-14. Fall break and a weather related match postponement against Miami caused a longer than planned layoff.
Northern comes in as the only MAC squad that managed to hang with the Falcons last year, which earned them an at large spot in last spring’s national championship. They were also expected to give BG another tight race for the MAC championship this fall until the wheels came off for the Huskies on the very first weekend of league play. After losing a tight match to Cincinnati, Northern was crushed 47-7 by Western Michigan the very next weekend.
The Huskies have earned two victories in the win column since then, but any title hopes have been downgraded to playing a spoiler role in the conference.
When asked if the layoff combined with the Huskies recent resurgence was a bad omen, Falcon captain Dane Szente replied with a firm, “Heck no. Every game we play, we know coming in we have a target on our back. That kind of firestorm motivates a lot of the guys on the team.”
“Throw in the fact that we are playing in the Doyt,” Szente said, “and I don’t think we will come out playing anything less than at the top of our game.”
The Falcons have won an unprecedented 31 straight Mid American Conference rugby titles. That ties them with the Kenyon College swimming team for the most consecutive college conference championships. Kenyon’s swimming team was champions of the North Coast Athletic Conference 31 times from 1980 until 2010.
BG has never lost to the Huskies and own an all-time 11 – 0 record against them. They expect to continue this trend in front of a home crowd at the Doyt this Saturday.
