OUA Men's Rugby Roundup September 15-17
September 15th, 2017
Waterloo 8 Western 29
The Warriors dropped a road game to the Western Mustangs on Friday evening in London, 29-8 to fall to 0-3 on the season.
It has been a slow start to the season for the black and gold but they have been up against very tough competition in the early going and put together a very solid 80 minutes on Friday.
The Warriors offence was provided by Aaron Goodridge (Waterloo/Waterloo) who got the lone Waterloo try while Mitch Voralek (Waterloo/) had a penalty goal.
Source:Waterloo Warriors
September 16th, 2017
RMC 0 Queen's 62
Kainoa Lloyd (Mississauga, Ont.) had three tries on the day to lead the Queen's Gaels (3-0) to a 62-0 victory over their cross-town rivals RMC (0-3) on Saturday afternoon at Nixon Field.
GAME FLOW
Joshua Engelbrecht (Oakville, Ont.) got the Gaels on the board with a pair of early tries first, finishing off a five-metre run and cutting to the inside for another five-metre finish. A pair of successful conversions from Dylan Young (Toronto) and the Gaels found themselves ahead 14-0.
Young then got on the scoresheet with a try of his own and nailed another conversion. From there, Lloyd added two of his three and Alex Pipchuk (Calgary) was able to break through the RMC defence pacing the field from half for a try. Heading into the first half Queen's was out in front 40-0.
In the second half, the Gaels kept the pressure on with three tries in a 10-minute span capped off with Lloyd touching down his third on the day.
The final strike came from Lachlan Devir (Toronto), and Queen's finished off with a 62-0 shutout of the Paladins.
The Gaels improved to a perfect 3-0 on the season with the win.
Source: Queen's Gaels
Laurier 17 Brock 19
The Brock University men's rugby team improved to 3-0 on the season as they came from behind to defeat the Laurier Golden Hawks by the score of 19-17 Saturday after as part of Homecoming Weekend.
Laurier jumped out to a 12-0 lead in the opening 20 minutes. Brock answered with tries from Brock Steven Commerford and Nabeel Imtiaz and a convert from Spencer Karn to tie it 12-12 at the half.
The Golden Hawks would regain the lead early in the second half to make it 17-12, missing the convert. Late in the contest, it was Brock leading scorer Ryan Hickey adding a try to even the game 17-17. Harry Hughes would make the convert for the two-point victory.
Source: Brock Badgers
Trent 20 Toronto 22
The University of Toronto Varsity Blues men's rugby team broke a five-year losing streak Saturday night (Sept. 16) after defeating the visiting Trent Excalibur 22-20 at Varsity Stadium.
The historic win marks the first for the men's rugby program since 2011 and the first over Trent since the Excalibur joined the OUA last season.
Varsity Blues head coach Jim Delaney, who is in his fourth season as bench boss with the men's team, was quick to point out the U of T support in the crowd on the momentous night.
"What was kind of special for me was about half a dozen players from previous years on hand who had helped to bring the program to where it is tonight. We've been so anxious about winning a game, we've had numerous opportunities to do it, but today we put enough together and I think this is truly going to change the program."
Spurred on by the alumni on-hand in the crowd the Varsity Blues rose to the occasion opening the match at a breakneck speed.
Toronto quickly jumped ahead in the 14th minute with a try from third-year co-captain Aaron Sommerhalder who plowed through the Trent defence to score.
U of T then added another try in the 29th minute from bruising fourth-year flanker John Stewart, followed by a breakaway effort from third-year fly half Bryson Discombe just before the half, putting the Varsity Blues ahead 22-5 at the break.
Second-year full back Faiyaz Lokhandwala successfully kicked two conversions for Toronto, adding one penalty goal as well.
The Excalibur would pressure throughout the second half with Emerson Prior scoring within the first five minutes and Will Hoffman finding paydirt in the final five to make it a two point game. However, Trent missed the conversion on the Hoffman try which would have tied the game allowing the Blues defence to then create a wall that the Excalibur could not break through.
"This year I made the decision to really structure our play and I think the players believe in it," said Delaney. "We've executed a lot of what we've talked about in practice. The quicker we can play, the more pressure we can put the defence under and I think we did that quiet well tonight."
Source:Toronto Varsity Blues
September 17th, 2017
Guelph 21 McMaster 15
The Guelph Gryphons men's rugby players are always well aware of their match with the McMaster Marauders on the OUA schedule. It's an important date on the calendar every year, a chance to test themselves against a strong side. The Gryphons had to hang on to pull out a narrow 21-15 win in the latest meeting with their Hamilton-based rival Sunday afternoon at Ron Joyce Stadium.
Jordan Hofstra, John Sheridan and Erich Milne all scored first-half tries to provide Guelph with all the scoring it would need in a tough matchup.
"This is a game that the boys really look forward to," said coach Cory Hector, who fielded his strongest lineup to date in Guelph's third match of the season. "It makes the week of training easier. We did a lot of things in this match that we worked on.
"We looked great – for about 55 minutes."
The Gryphons (3-0) started out slow as the Marauders dominated possession in the opening 20 minutes of the match. The hosts would go up 3-0 but Guelph stormed back to score the three tries in quick succession for a 21-3 lead at the half.
McMaster kept the Gryphons off the scoresheet in the second half and manufactured two tries, the second coming late in the match. But the comeback attempt fell short.
"We eventually started playing our style of rugby," Hector said of the offensive outburst in the first half. "But we took a lot of penalties in the second half and were forced to defend.
"They gave us a scare."
Sheridan, a first-year fly half from Bolton, ON, was good on all three conversion attempts in addition to his try. Hector was particularly impressed with third-year centre Kyle Lagasca, who was a presence defending and in attack.
"He broke the line often and was excellent covering in defence," Hector said of the Toronto, ON native.
Source: Guelph Gryphons
