The Collegian

Issue date: 4/3/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Maria Schmitt

Bruised and battered, the Hillsdale rugby team returned home Saturday defeated after their first match.

The team lost 59-0 to Saginaw Valley State University, a first-year club team also playing their first match. Hillsdale sophomore Ian Faley, team captain, said the opposition had about twice the number of players and 10 to 15 more pounds of body weight per player.

Even though they suffered a lost, the players consider it a step forward in their progress as a team. Faley said the outstanding players of the game were juniors Kevin King and Mark Perkins. However, the team's offense played poorly and suffered a series of futile attempts at scoring.

"[But] we learned that we are actually in shape enough to last two forty-minute halves," Faley said. "When you're playing another team, you don't hold back punches, quite literally in some cases."



Though the team did not score, Faley said coaches from both Saginaw Valley and Grand Valley State University told him they had never seen a team play with as much heart as Hillsdale.

"They were technically better, but we put two to three times more heart into it," Faley said. "In the last two minutes of the game, when there was no chance we could win, we were still fighting with everything we had."

Faley said the team sustained "a few flesh wounds." Junior Stephen Petrie's ear was ripped open in the first half. Petrie said he didn't feel like going to the hospital after returning to Hillsdale and sterilized the wound with whiskey. Junior Rob Ogden superglued the gash together.

Following the ear injury, Petrie suffered a concussion and said he cannot remember the second half.

"It was obviously just a blunt impact," Petrie said. "There was probably just a big man lying on top of me. I don't have any goose eggs or anything."

Even with a badly bruised ear, Petrie said he will definitely play next week.

The night before the game, sophomore Maggie O'Connor sewed numbers on the team's jerseys. The team will wear their numbers Saturday at Wayne State University. They also plan to play Michigan State University and to organize a home game in upcoming weeks.

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