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Article by Erik Geib
06 December 2009 |
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Columbia, SC –
The Men's Rugby Club at the University
of South Carolina released its 2009 Fall
Team Awards recently. Awards are handed
out at the end of each semester, and are
voted on by the officer corps with input
from the coaching staff. This semester's
winners are:
Most Valuable Player: Cullen Clair
'B-Side' MVP: Tom Plumley
Palmetto MVP: James Jacobs
Best Forward: Josh "Medic" Skaggs
Best Back: Richard Pyke
Best Rookie: Colin McKeon
Most Improved: Mike Varga
___
The next home match for the Gamecocks
will be Saturday, January 23rd, at 1:00
PM on USC's
STWFC Rugby Field.
Carolina will be taking on the Wake
Forest Demon Deacons in their inaugural
Carolinas Rugby
League match, and both A & B
sides will be actively competing to
finish atop the standings. The Carolinas
Rugby League is USC's new spring matrix,
and consists of the top 7 clubs in North
and South Carolina, including USC, Wake
Forest, Clemson, North Carolina,
Appalachian State University, North
Carolina State University, and East
Carolina University. As the league is a
mixture of Division I and Division II
competition, it will send its top DI
school into the South DI Final Four and
its top two DII clubs to the South DII
Quarter-Finals. The CRL will be naming
its own all-star team, as selected by
coaches and referees, and will reward
the top club with its own trophy at the
end of each season. The brainchild of
former UNC head coach Andy Richards, the
league is intended to limit regional
clubs' travel time while promoting local
growth through rivaled competition.
This Fall,
USC 'A' finished with an overall record
of 14-3 for its Fall season, with the
team never having lost a non-tournament
full-regulation affair (the club lost
twice at
Rucktoberfest
and once in the
SEC Tournament).
One of those losses came at the hands of
#6 Louisiana State University, and the
other two were both avenged in a
full-regulation match in Columbia, with
the Gamecocks defeating AHO [Appalachian
State] on November 7th (24-08), and N.C.
State on October 17th (19-07).
The club also finished the fall
undefeated at home, and USC 'B'
finished 5-2-1 (9-2-1 if you consider it
was the 'B' side that powered Carolina
to the 2009 Palmetto Collegiate Cup
Championship), also going undefeated at
home. USC 'B' was also the 2009
Rucktoberfest Second Division Champions.
The Gamecocks Palmetto ('C') side will
play in USA Rugby South's Division III
competition, taking on Furman, College
of Charleston, The Citadel, Coastal
Carolina, Lander, and Armstrong Atlantic
State in the Palmetto League - a brutal
conference that has produced the last 7
South Championships while capturing 4 of
the last 7 Division III National
Championships. Such competition will do
wonders for the continued growth and
success of USC rugby, as participation
in last year's league is a large factor
behind USC's dominant run in Fall 2009.
The University of South Carolina is the
only school in all of USA Rugby South to
operate 3 full sides in South matrix
competition, with USC A and B
participating in USA Rugby Division I.
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