Outlaws Head East for Playoffs
November 5, 2009
St. Bonaventure will travel the the Bronx this Saturday to take on Met NY champion Fordham University in the NRU Quarterfinals. The Outlaws, ranked #21 this week by RugbyMag.com, will kickoff against the Rams at 4:00 p.m. at Murphy Field on Fordham's Rose Hill Campus.
Fordham (4-2) earned the NRU #4 seed by beating the Army Colts last weekend 25-23 in the Met NY finals after finishing runner-up to the Colts in the regular season. St. Bonaventure is the #5 NRU seed, earned by finishing 5-1 and in second place in the NYS Premier League. The winner will travel to West Point, NY for the NRU Final Four on November 14th & 15th.
Northeast Rugby Union Quarterfinals
#8 SUNY Brockport @ #1 US Military Academy
#5 St. Bonaventure University @ #4 Fordham University
#6 Harvard University @ #3 Syracuse University
#7 Boston College @ #2 Dartmouth College
St. Bonaventure Tops Cortland; Headed to NRU Playoffs
October 26, 2009
Once again playing on a rain-soaked pitch, St. Bonaventure locked up second place in the NYS Premier League with a 49-20 win at Cortland State. Fly Half Jarred Vos accounted for 15 points and Darren Kmicinski added 14 of his own in the convincing win.
Things got under way simply enough, with Kmicinski, then Cortland, then Vos kicking penalties to give the Outlaws a 6-3 lead at the 22 minute mark. Pressuring the hosts throughout the opening half, the Outlaws were finally able to break into the try zone in an unconventional way. Battering the Cortland line for several phases, the ball eventually found it's way to Kmicinski. Finding a wall of defenders in between himself and pay dirt, the winger chipped over the line at the 5 meter line, gathered his own kick before it touched the ground and slid in for the score. He added the conversion for the 13-3 lead. Following the restart, Mark Hanna took a pass off the side of a ruck, broke through the initial line of defense, fended off a pair of would-be-tacklers and rambled in for the 40-meter solo try, his eighth score of the season. Kmicinski slotted the kick and St. Bonaventure went to the half up 20-3.
Playing for an injured Pat Carey, debutant prop Tim Hanna made his presence known. After a long driving maul, Hanna rolled to the left and broke free from the Cortland defense. Inches from the line, the McQuaid product offloaded to Chris Schott for the lanky forwards second try of the season and a 27-3 lead.
Cortland answered with a second penalty goal but SBU answered when Craig Chatfield burst through the line, moved the ball wide to Waldo Maldonado and the senior out paced the cover defense to the corner for the try.
St. Bonaventure added three more second half tries in spectacular fashion. Tim Hanna again showed he had the family nose for the try zone, again taking the ball from a maul and charging in for his first career try. Jarred Vos scored his two on well executed chip-and-chase plays. On the first he abused a 3-on-1 overlap when he kicked back to the inside and nearly chased the ball down before the Cortland wing tackled him from behind for a penalty try. Vos sealed the deal on his second effort when he was able to kick, zig-zag through traffic and dive on the ball before it could roll dead. A Cortland try finished the scoring at 49-20.
Man of the Match
Jarred Vos continued his emergence as the starting pivot, scoring a pair of beautiful tries and keeping Cortland pinned deep in their own territory with his boot. Tim Hanna deserves a mention for his successful transition to prop after playing flanker in high school.
Scoring
Tries - Vos (2), Kmicinski, M. Hanna, Schott, Maldonado, T. Hanna
Conversions - Kmicinski 3-5, Vos 1-2
Penalties - Kmicinski 1-1, Vos 1-1
Roster
15 Craig Chatfield (Taye Daniel @ 68'), 14 Andrew Maldonado (to #9 @ 65'), 13 Conor Walsh (Jacob Donius @ 62'), 12 Greg George, 11 Darren Kmicinski, 10 Jarred Vos, 9 Tom Theurkauf (Dave Corsini @ 65'), 8 Chris Schott, 7 Nick Maurer (C), 6 Mike George (Jon Garbin @ 68'), 5 Cam Smith, 4 Mark Hanna (Greg Hoyos @ 58', Glenn Tetlow @ 71'), 3 Al Lilga, 2 Sam Giordano (to #6 @ 71'), 1 Pat Carey (Tim Hanna @ 30')
St. Bonaventure Outlasts Brockport in Ice Bowl
October 19, 2009
 photo by Sean Miller |
Both sides showed their commitment in the early going with back and forth play. While SBU controlled the territory, Brockport did their best to run the ball out of the Outlaw half. The Golden Eagles showed their play making ability at the 20 minutes mark when their hard-running fullback Bradley Scott took the ball down the right wing from 30 meters out for the 5-0 lead.
v Down but not out, the next 30 minutes would be controlled by the hosts. Keeping the ball deep in Brockport territory, an errant kick found its way to Darren Kmicinski in space, never a good thing for the opposition. Kmicinski streaked in from just outside the 22 and converted his own try for the 7-5 lead. Minutes later a strong of Golden Eagle penalties gave the Outlaws a lineout 30 meters out. A driving maul brought the ball into striking distance and after another Brockport penalty, Mark Hanna touched down for the seventh time this season, giving the hosts a 12-5 lead.
As at his been this season, a win would not come easily. Loose head prop took a knee to the head on the maul, forcing him out. A minute later, 8-man Atkinson received a red card for what was deemed a dangerous tackle, leaving the Outlaws with seven forwards for the final 50 minutes.
"I don't think that at any point in the game anyone was making excuses for being a man down," said man of the match Nick Maurer. "We looked past that and gave it our all for 80 minutes. We all wanted it and a red card wasn't going to slow anyone down."
Determined to keep the pressure up, SBU pinned the ball deep in Brockport territory. A 22-meter drop out, followed by a Craig Chatfield counter kick, found SBU pushing for the try zone again. After a series of pick-and-drives, Chris Schott found a hole and gave St. Bonaventure the 17-5 lead. A Kmicinski penalty stretched the lead to 20-5 at the 47 minutes mark and it was time for the Outlaws to hold on.
Injured prop J.T. Sheehan said, "The game was very much a seesaw battle and the determining factor of the game was field position. Very simply, when we got deep in their half we scored and when they got into our half they scored." He went on to say, "We played the field position very well through our kicking and all the way through the chase to set up a defensive platform in their end. We forced them to make mistakes and capitalized on them."
Brockport tries at 62 and 73 minutes kept things tense but the SBU defense was able to hold on for the win.
“They had the game plan for the conditions,” said Brockport head coach Mike Hodgins. “They made the right adjustments and we didn’t.” (Source: American Rugby News)
Man of the Match
The entire backline had a fine outing in defense and the kicking game. Zibi Pawlowski was again huge in lineouts and support. Mark Hanna ripped of a half dozen runs of 30-plus meters. But the bottom line is, SBU would not have won without Nick Maurer. The flanker - playing tight head prop - held up for 80 minutes in scrums, tackled every player that came within 10 meters of him and has a load in contact as usual. But most importantly, the junior took the reigns after Atkinson's card and played his best when the team needed him most.
Scoring
Tries - Hanna, Kmicinski, Schott Conversions - Kmicinski 1-3 Penalties - Kmicinski 1-2
Roster
15 Craig Chatfield, 14 Darren Kmicinski, 13 Greg George, 12 Will Atkinson, 11 Conor Walsh, 10 Jarred Vos, 9 Tom Theurkauf, 8 Ben Atkinson (C) (Red Card @ 33'), 7 Chris Schott, 6 Mike George, 5 Zibi Pawlowski, 4 Mark Hanna (Greg Hoyos @ 66'), 3 Nick Maurer, 2 Dennis Mulligan, 1 Pat Carey (Derek Folts @ 32')
| New York State Rugby Conference | ||||
| 2009 Premier Division I Standings | ||||
| Pts. | W | L | T | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Syracuse University | 27 | 5 | 1 | 0 |
| St Bonaventure University | 26 | 5 | 1 | 0 |
| Brockport SUNY | 23 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
| Buffalo SUNY | 20 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
| Albany SUNY | 13 | 2 | 4 | 0 |
| Binghamton SUNY | 8 | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Cortland SUNY | 2 | 0 | 6 | 0 |
