Final score 26 – 5, Loss
After a 6-hour bus ride and 4am departure, we arrived at Colby about 10:00am, with plenty of time to change and warm up before our 12:00 game.
Due to some last minute injuries, we set out with just 15 players, knowing that it was going to be a tough game. Unfortunately, Colby did an excellent job of exploiting our weaknesses in the first half. We struggled to organize and set a defensive line off the break down, and Colby’s strong inside center pushed in a try in the first 10 minutes or so. Colby proceeded to score 2 more tries in the first half, mainly because of their ability to attack the outside, while we weren’t able to spread out to help our wings in time.
After our hesitation in the first half, we came back out ready to fix our mistakes and work on attacking. After Colby’s 4th and last try at the beginning of the second half, we finally began to play the game on our terms. We maintained almost constant possession for the next 35 minutes, and played it all very close to Colby’s try line. We were proud of our ability to attack over and over again, never giving up. Some beautiful runs from our back line, punches from our forwards, and quick balls out to fullback Julianna Gardner (’13) allowed us to get the ball into the try zone 3 or 4 times—unfortunately the narrow Colby field did not work in our favor, and we were either knocked out of bounds or held up many times. However, towards the end of the second half fly half Julia Gulka (’13) got a quick pass inside to hooker Marea “Rae” Colombo (’13) who drove the ball just over the try line and promptly burst into tears.
Other shout outs go out to Katie Linder (’15) who took down their hugest player with ease at the line out countless times, Katy Svec (’15) for doing an amazing job in her first time locking, and Molly Kaminski (’15) for playing in her first rugby game ever! And, as always, we were very grateful to our injured players who made the trek out to Maine to support us. Thanks everyone!
Although the game started out a little shaky, we were all proud of our ability to turn things around in the second half and not give up despite the disadvantages we faced. The Colby team was nice enough to invite us into their dining hall for a post-game meal and then over for a fun filled social. A good time was had by all.
We look forward to our first home game of the season against Amherst next Saturday! 1:00pm at the rugby pitch, fans welcome!
First half
Colby – 7
Colby – 7
Colby – 7
Second half
Colby – 5
Rae Colombo – 5
feel as if i had been there
xoooxoxoxox miss y’all
It’s okay guys! You’ll get them next time!
Love you girls!