By John Syms, Part-Time Staff Writer
On Nov. 5. the Saint Vincent College men’s rugby team failed to capture the conference title as the team lost 39-17 against Grove City College. It was the fourth time in a row that the SVC Rugby team made it to the conference championship, but SVC has only won the championship once out of the four times.
The SVC rugby team would finish the season 4-0 and win the divisional game against Geneva College to advance to conference final. Even after losing the conference championship game, SVC rugby is still aiming for a chance to play and win regionals. In order to do that, the rugby team must beat Clarion University next week. The date for Clarion vs. SVC has yet to be announced.
Michael Murphy, head coach of the rugby team for eight years, said, “It has not ended yet, we have one more shot at something bigger and something that we as a team has always done, and that is go to Regionals.”
Regionals will be in St. Louis, Missouri. The Rugby team is pumped and ready to continue on to play, as they practice every Tuesday and Wednesday from 7:30-9:30 p.m.
Murphy added on to say, “This has been one of the most dynamic years for our offense, but not necessarily our best defensive year, but we are coming around. Even though we lost, it is still something we can take a lot out of to really increase more of our skills sets for next week against Clarion.”
The rugby team will lose a total of eight seniors next year. Team captain, Nick Navarro, senior business marketing major, reflected on the championship game stating “Nerves were high, we were really excited about winning the championship. We just played our game, not conformed to what the other team does and give it 100 percent for each other.”
Despite losing the conference, Nick would reflect on how he had fun with the team during the season stating, “We had a blast this season, and we had a bunch of new guys coming in from the start and they stepped up into the role perfectly, so I couldn’t be happier with this team.”
Last Year, the SVC rugby team won the conference title game and booked a spot to regionals. Even after losing it, the men’s rugby is still looking for something better.