In a hotly contested match last weekend, the men’s rugby team lost narrowly to Union College 17-15, ending their season as the No. 2 club squad in New England.
Charlie Allen ’14 scored off the opening kickoff, with captain David Dietz ’14 also scoring a try within the first 10 minutes of the game. But Bowdoin was unable to score again, and Union slowly closed the gap, scoring a penalty in the last eight minutes to steal the lead.
The Bowdoin men were faced with a number of challenges, according to Head Coach Richard Scala.
“We just wore out,” he said. “We’ve been playing bigger teams game after game and it takes its toll eventually.”
Scala also said that Union played an intensely physical game, which was difficult for the Polar Bears.
“We took a really fast, early lead and we kind of assumed that they weren’t very good,” added Dietz. “For the rest of the game we weren’t really prepared for them to come back like they did. It wasn’t a problem as much as it was something we didn’t see coming.”
Scala also noted a number of injuries that prevented upperclassmen starters Sam Patterson ’14, Roger Tejada ’14 and Kurt Herzog ’13 from playing in the game. This forced many underclassmen to cover the spots.
“We were using a lot of reserves, who did very well,” said Scala.
With the fall season over, the team will be taking a short break and then start intense conditioning after Thanksgiving break.
“Come March or so we’ll do some practices in the gym, and hopefully we’ll be back on the field by April,” said Dietz.
The schedule for the spring exhibition season has yet to be decided, but the Polar Bears plan to participate in “sevens” tournaments. Sevens is a variant of rugby which limits each team to only seven players on the field—instead of 15—and has short game times, allowing for what Dietz called “fast and high-scoring” games.
For now, however, the team is focusing on extending this season’s successes into the spring.
“I think the rugby [team] has gotten a little more serious over the past few years,” said Dietz. “I’d really like to see that continue, and I think it will.”