The Colorado Mesa University’s men’s rugby club team pulled through in an exciting win over Western Colorado University over the weekend as the Mavericks beat the Mountaineers for the first time in over five years. The Mavericks put up a season-high 45 points in the 45-24 victory.
“Today was a great game for them,” Head Coach Mackenzie Lewis said. “They finally came together as a unit, we’ve been saying all season that it’s there and they finally believed it and bought in.”
Both teams were different in stature and play style. CMU utilized their size and force to methodically work the downfield while Western was the smaller team and attempted to use their speed to make plays.
Throughout the beginning of the match and even the first half, the Mavericks seemed to struggle somewhat offensively despite their size advantage. The Mountaineers contributed a strong defensive effort through the duration of half, however, CMU was able to get two tries on the board by consistently winning rucks and moving the ball downfield.
The first try by the Mavericks occurred with just over 26 minutes left in the first half but failed to convert the extra kick.
The score was held particularly low within the first half, both teams struggling to jump ahead. Going into halftime, the Mountaineers were hanging on with a 12-10 lead over the Mavericks.
“At halftime, we told them to make smarter offloads,” Lewis said, “We had a couple of sloppy offloads in the first half, just getting over-excited”
With the start of the second half, CMU’s goal was to tighten things up. There was no room for sloppy play or error in such a close match.
The first try of half was delivered by none other than the Mavericks themselves in the 46th minute. CMU quickly followed with two more tries in both in the next ten minutes but failed to convert on the kicks. This pushed the Mavericks lead to 25-17.
Western started to falter against the size of the Mavericks as CMU found success once again with a long run along the left side of the pitch to add to their commanding lead. This extended the lead to 35-17.
The Mountaineers would eventually rebuttal with a try of their own with just 12 minutes left in the match. Too little too late.
CMU asserted their second-half dominance with two more final tries to seal the deal as well as eventually finding success within the uprights. Both tries being touched down within the final 10 minutes of the match.
With the win, the Mavericks improve to 2-2 on the year and look ahead to their next match against CSU-Pueblo in Pueblo on Oct. 5.
