BEAVER FALLS, Pa. - The Franciscan University rugby team dominated against conference opponent Geneva College 53-0 in their first win of the season.
"It was the best I have ever seen the team play in my two years of coaching them," head coach Ken DeLucia said. "Twenty-three guys played and twenty-three guys had great games."
The Barons started out strong and confident. After the first scrum, DeLucia knew that FUS had reached the level of fitness that they needed to in order to be successful in their system. The team's training had come together and they were on point for the duration of the game.
"Our style of play, our pattern of play, is a southern hemisphere brand of rugby," DeLucia said. "It is very open and expansive and we try to go in the same direction of our attack until we get to the other side of the field and then we reverse field and do that again so it's full field, a lot of running and you have to be very fit to do it. These guy are suited up to do that."
Franciscan dominated scrums and the forwards had an extremely powerful match. Six different players scored Franciscan's seven tries and DeLucia said he was pleased to see so many different people contributing.
Senior Josh Wilson, senior Rob McClelland, junior Connor McCaffrey, sophomore Jimmy Kueber, and freshman Jeff Baldwin all finished with one try each. DeLucia also said that seniors Adam Smyth and Jason Liuzzi as well as sophomore Clayton Lange also stood out as key players.
Despite all of those impressive performances the man of the match went to senior captain Tom Allen whose foot accounted for 18 points.
"Tom Allen was hands down the Man of the Match," DeLucia said. "We put a lot of pressure on him but he played really well. He scored almost every try conversion he went for and even scored on two penalty kicks."
Freshman scrum-half John Schuele scored the last two tries of the match, one off of a scrum and the other after a long run down the field, solidifying the Baron's dominance over the Golden Tornados.
"I was not expecting the score to be so lopsided but I did expect the guys to go out and play as well as they did," DeLucia said. "I feel really good about today's performance and actually it's the best that I have ever seen them perform up to the standard that we are looking for."
DeLucia and the Barons will seek to carry that momentum forward into the next week of training so that their hard work can again translate onto the field. FUS plays next on September 21 against Grove City, the reigning conference champions, at 1 pm at home.
