The match started as scheduled and in an uncharacteristic move UT Dallas marched the ball down the pitch to score the first Try of the day 2 minutes into the match. The lads came out on fire and played hard, but UD played a similar style of rugby was able to even the score a few minutes later, the score 2 more Trys as the 1st half came to a conclusion. Half time score UT Dallas 5, UD 15.
The Line up:
1. Brandon, 2. Daniel, 3. Maika, 4. Precious, 5. Manny, 6. Arjun, 7. Luke, 8. Jake, 9. Jordan, 10. Andrew Whiteis, 11. Liam, 12. Nicky, 13. Andrew Do, 14. Zach, 15. Octavio
Reserves: 16, Nick Pebworth, 17. Nick Fu, 18. Kashan, 19. Josh Todd
The second half began with only 1 sub coming on, 16, Nick came on for Jordan. Both sides played an intense 2nd half, lots of hard hits and both sides drove between the 22 meter lines. UT Dallas was able to score 3 Trys in this half, Zach scored 2 and Octavio scored his first Try of his young rugby career and then converted his own try, but we were unable to keep UD out of goal. They scored 2 more Trys and the final score, UT Dallas 22, UD 27. The lads played very well and it shows a brief preview of what is to come next year and the years to come.
On another note, it was a surprise to me to see UT Dallas' first Rugby Coach show up at the match. K.C. Kinney, who coached UT Dallas from 2000 to about 2005 traveled to Irving to watch the game. Most of you believe I am the first coach at UT Dallas, but it really was K.C. that started the whole thing, I did work with him for a few weeks, before moving on to coach another school.
This coming weekend (2/28) the final matches will be played by both the UD Dallas Women and Men. The women will play their last match of the year against Sam Houston State Women. The Men take on Angelo State University for their last match of the year.
Preview Women - Kick off schedule for 3:00pm. Sam Houston St. Women don't have to numbers to play 10 a side, so we'll play the best out of three matches. In the past 2 years, our women have won a couple of matches against Sam Houston, but we were still new to rugby and now have very talented players in key positions, so I expect that we will be able to give Sam a competitive run.
Preview Men - Kick off scheduled for 4:00pm. Angelo St. University (ASU), is coming to UT Dallas with an undefeated record and the only blemish on this record is the tie that they had early last fall. ASU will be big, and strong, but we've played this style of club before and were able to compete.