Women’s rugby wins close match with William and Mary

By NATHANIEL DEVINE

Staff Writer

On Saturday Mar. 31, the University of Mary Washington Eagles’ Women’s Rugby team faced off against the William and Mary’s Tribes. At first, both teams seemed to be evenly matched as each team stole the ball from one another, defended their goals, gained significant yardage when on offense.

The Eagles’ luck seemed to turn as William and Mary scored twice on them in the first half of the game. However, UMW started to come back near the end of the first half, scoring on William and Mary. At halftime, William and Mary was up by one try with the Eagles looking to catch up.

The second half of the game was equally as tense, with both teams going at it head to head as if their lives depended on it. William and Mary once again scored on the Eagles after a rigorous and lengthy back and forth.

However, the Eagles evened out the score in the fourth quarter.

For the rest of the game the Eagles kept pace with William and Mary, matching their offensive fronts with equally skilled defense, and vice versa, and following up a try from William and Mary with one of their own. Finally the Eagles took the lead from William and Mary and held it for the remainder of the game, bring the final score to 32 – 24 for UMW.

When asked about the victory, head coach Kris Kabuza said “In terms of strengths, it appears this semester the team was determined and worked hard to turn around a rebuilding year. We lost during the regular season to William and Mary something like 55-5.  So, the turn around says a lot regarding the players commitment to the team”

Kabuza hopes to recruit more for the team and build up the numbers. Kabuza said that currently their biggest weakness is their numbers and their player depth.

Their next game will be against George Washington on April 14.