PITTSBURGH – Coming off of a two-week hiatus since their loss to Grove City College – their first regular season loss in over two years – the Franciscan University rugby team bounced back when they traveled to Robert Morris University where they controlled the match and handily beat the Colonials, 54-21.
"Our guys overcame a lot of adversity this week with injuries and weather issues at practice," first-year head coach Ken DeLucia said. "Today I was very impressed with their continuity and teamwork."
DeLucia said that coming into this match his team just wanted to stick to its game plan and style of play.
"Every week we are going to get better," DeLucia said.
Their previous match was played at Harding Stadium in the annual Robert D'Anniballe Rugby Ruckus, and DeLucia said that the smaller playing field was a disadvantage to his team's game plan in the loss to Grove City.
"It was good to get on a bigger field because the way that we want to play the game is to use the entire field and that means to spread teams out and run them, making our fitness a strength," DeLucia said. "Our ability to recycle the ball quickly is really what makes that flow, and we did a really great job of that today."
Freshman Baron Rugger David Fay won Saturday's "Man of the Match," as he lead the Barons with three tries.
"David's field vision and ability to run in traffic is excellent and that really helped us out today," DeLucia said.
The Barons will take this week to prepare for next weekend's match against Fairmont State University, and Coach DeLucia stressed that they will continue working on what they have worked on all season.
"Fundamentals," DeLucia said. "We need to become a little more crisp and just reinforce the things we already went over."
The Barons move to 3-1 on the season and they host Fairmont State on Saturday, Oct. 6, at 1 p.m.
