The Georgetown men’s club rugby team had their championship hopes dashed this past weekend in Santa Cruz, CA. After throttling No. 8 Idaho State 58-19 on Saturday, the team came up short on Sunday in the National Semi-Finals against No. 4 Northern Colorado by a margin of 23-10.
The weekend was a tale of two games as the Hoyas came out charging against Idaho. Senior flanker Greg Suellentrop opened the scoring for Georgetown and the Hoyas never looked back, scoring 24 unanswered points. Eventually, Idaho State was able to punch a try through at the end of the half to cut the Hoya margin to 24-7.
“Right from our first possession we scored, and then we just kept going,” senior flyhalf Jake Ludwigson said. “We really dominated that whole game.”
Despite an early Idaho State score to open the half, the Hoyas were not about to let them have any sense of a comeback. The Hoyas went on to score 34 more points before the match was over, including a try by junior outside center Brion McGlinn, his first career A-side try. The Hoyas’ offense was led by Ludwigson’s 18 points as well as Suellentrop’s 15 points on the strength of his three tries.
On Sunday, however, Georgetown was a different team. After establishing such a dominant tone in the previous game, the Hoyas were somewhat rattled after Northern Colorado jumped on the board first to take a 7-0 lead.
“We weren’t really sure what to expect,” Ludwigson said. “They were really similar to us. They had explosive backs and they focused on getting those guys the ball, working it outside and getting to the corner.”
After facing an early deficit, the Hoyas managed to respond with senior fullback Ben Purcell touching down for the try, cutting the Hoyas’ deficit to 7-5. Northern Colorado, however, countered with a solid possession of their own that resulted in a penalty kick to extend the lead to five.
“We weren’t making our hits and they came out pumped up,” McGlinn said. “They were really setting the tone early.”
The Hoyas, desperate for another score before halftime, finally got one. It was Purcell who answered the call with his second try of the day to tie the game at 10-10.
“Our main focus was getting our heads out of our butts,” Ludwigson said. “We kind of lost focus of where we were, but then we came out of the funk and scored.”
The second half saw a rejuvenated Hoyas squad intent on finishing their West Coast business trip. Both teams, knowing what was at stake, dug in and relented very little for the game’s final 40 minutes. With the score tied and just over 12 minutes remaining, Northern Colorado broke through with a try to take a 15-10 lead. A penalty kick conversion ran the lead to 18-10, and a try in the game’s final minutes led to the game’s final margin.
“We missed a lot of opportunities to score in the second half because of penalties,” Ludwigson said. “Those really killed our momentum.”
Despite the loss, the team has generated enough memories that one loss will not tarnish four years of work.
“I’m proud of the fact that I came in with all of these guys four years ago, and that we’ve come this far,” Ludwigson said. “Four years ago we had a losing record, and now we got to No. 3 in the country and the Final Four.”
McGlinn emphasized how important the seniors were.
“The leadership from that group of seniors got us to where we are,” McGlinn said. “It is definitely something that we’re going to have to replace next year if we want to have this type of season again.”
