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Rugby tournament draws teams, crowds |
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Thursday, 12 October 2006 |
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by RYAN WIXTED
Intern Sports Reporter
A broken collar bone, concussion and broken nose were just a few of the many injuries that occurred at the seventh annual Rucktoberfest held in Boone this past weekend.
This
year’s tournament, the largest rugby tournament held in North Carolina,
drew many teams from all over the southeast region.
On the women’s side, Clemson University was the favorite as well as University of Virginia and Appalachian State University.
ASU had an impressive opening game beating Virginia’s B-team 43-0.
In the team’s second match, it was a defensive struggle with JMU, eventually ending in a tie.
“We are playing pretty well so far, but we still have areas we can
improve on before the next match,” junior Amanda L. Watkins said.
The team was able to make adjustments and beat the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill in the semi-finals 3-0 to advance to the
championship match.
In the championship game, the Mountaineers could not find an answer
against Virginia’s offense. Appalachian lost 22-0 to an aggressive
Cavaliers team.
On the men’s side, teams such as the University of South Carolina,
Virginia and Eastern Carolina University were all in attendance.
Virginia entered this year’s tournament as the favorite but faced stiff competition throughout the tournament.
AHO men’s club rugby team President senior Donald W. Burns believes
this year’s tournament drew many impressive teams from all over.
“We [had] many competitive teams here this year,” he said. “Virginia
[was] the top team here, then ECU is right behind them. We [were]
probably the third favorite.”
The AHO men’s team had two shutout wins over Virginia’s B-team 14-0 and College of Charleston 21-0.
In the night match Saturday, the men were able to get by University of
North Carolina at Wilmington 17-3 and advance to the semifinals Sunday.
In Sunday’s match facing ECU, the men’s team struggled to get on track and lost 13-5.
The game was very physical, but AHO committed too many penalties giving the Pirates easy scoring opportunities.
ECU would go on to win Rucktoberfest, beating James Madison University 14-7.
Even though Appalachian’s men and women’s rugby teams fell short in
this year’s Rucktoberfest, the tournament was still a big success,
Burns said.
“We were able to get great competition for the tournament and I believe many teams were pretty impressed,” Burns said.
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