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Men’s rugby looks to continue last season’s domination |
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Thursday, 05 October 2006 |
by Ryan Wixted
Intern Sports Reporter
The AHO men’s club rugby team is looking to pick up where they left off a season ago.
 Active Image | Bryan Tarnowski | The Appalachian
Michael Devivo (r) breaks tackles during the AHO rugby practice Sunday afternoon on the State Farm Fields. Rucktoberfest is this weekend.
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The club is coming off an impressive season where they advanced to the
regional final-four, before losing to the 2005 national champions,
Arkansas State University.
President of the men’s rugby team junior Donald W. Burns believes this team has what it takes to make it to the championship.
“Last year, we got farther then any team has in the past 10 years and we did it without a coach,” he said.
The club has most of their players returning from last year, as well as many freshmen joining this year’s squad.
Junior club member Joseph R. Mullin believes this is one of the most talented squads the club has had in recent years.
“We are coming off a great season last year and we look pretty good so far this year,” he said.
The men’s team held an alumni scrimmage last Sunday to let former players see how the club has grown.
“We just want the alumni to know what is going on with this year’s team and show them the progress of our club,” Burns said.
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The scrimmage helped the club prepare for the seventh annual
Rucktoberfest, a weekend-long rugby tournament held every year in
Boone. The tournament draws many top rugby teams from all across the
southeast region and is this coming weekend.
“We have teams such as East Carolina [University], University of South
Carolina and University of North Carolina at Wilmington,” Burns said.
“They all have very good rugby teams.”
The ASU rugby club has seen some of these teams before. The
Mountaineers beat USC in a close match to advance to the regional
final-four a season ago.
Rucktoberfest has always been a great indicator for where the club is
among other collegiate rugby teams, senior captain Michael A. Chase
said.
“The tournament gives us a great chance to see where we stand against other opposing teams from our region,” he said.
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