A description of Saturday's games - on Tuesday

Grove City won our rugby games on saturday. The women's team played California University of Pensylvania (now THERE's a contradiction of terms) and beat them somewhere around 60-70 to zip - in other words, smashed them into the dust. That was an interesting game to watch, with one drive after another that would literally sweep the opposition off of thier feet (onto thier backs, into the mud). The men's game with Juniata College followed. We had a good challenge to beat Juniata, but we still beat them, around ~20 vs. ~10. Because one of the more experienced players was taken off the field for dangerous playing, I got to play in the A-side game as well as the B-side games (A-side = good, experienced players, B-side = new, inexperienced, practice game that dosn't really count for anything). Some friends from my hall came during the B-side game and got some pictures. The first one is me receiving a kick from the other team (middle of the picture), followed about 5 seconds later by my plowing though one defender only to be hit by the man right behind him. If I remember right, I got the ball out before I was all the way down, so we didnt have to ruck to maintain possession. (I am in jersey #16, lower left)














It was a fun game. I am still learning more about rugby, but now I have a good idea of the rules and how to play. Since it was homecoming weekend, there were a lot of alumni around the school. Saturday's B-side game had quite a few of the alumni who had played rugby in the past playing against the B-side team from Juniata. Just after halftime, when GCC's forward line was entirely comprised of alumni, one of them made a beautiful tackle, perfect formwise, not mean or dirty in the least. Unfortunately for the tacklee, though, he hit hard and smashed the other guy into the ground, breaking the collarbone of the Juniata player. This is definitely a sport where injuries occur, but that dosn't stop most people from playing and loving the sport.

Jeremy Turpin