Life University Athletics

MALDEN, Mass. ---- The Life University men's club rugby team earned its third consecutive victory by 30 or more points over the weekend, as the team defeated Mystic River 47-10 to improve to 5-1 on the year.

Duncan Van Schalkwyk benefited from a clever offload from Matias Corrado to score Life's first try in the ninth minute as Sam Cowley knocked through the conversion for an early 7-0 lead. Both teams went through their phases until the 24th minute when after applying pressure through some solid forward carries, D. Van Schalkwyk sold an outrageous dummy pass to score his second try of the match. Cowley had another successful conversion for a 14-0 Running Eagle lead.

Five minutes later, with Mystic trying to clear their own line, Ryan Rees charged down the kick and gathered the ball to score Life's third try. Cowley tallied his third conversion as right at the half Mystic scored a pair of late tries to bring the halftime score to 21-10.

Four minutes into the second half the forwards went to work. Kicking to the corner after a scrum penalty, the forwards set up a maul which led to Amro Gouda scoring his first of three tries for the afternoon. Cowley again was successful with the conversion for the 28-10 advantage. A big 40m kick to touch from Duncan, gave the forwards another opportunity with their maul 5m out. And they didn't disappoint with Gouda scoring his second of the day. De ja vu, as a TO scrum penalty lead to a kick to the corner with Gouda scoring off the ensuing maul for his third try of the match six minutes later. Cowley again made the conversion to bring the tally to 40-10.

Five minutes before the end of the match, a Matias Corrado run down the right touch line saw Life on the front foot in the Mystic 22m. Life moved the ball wide left with Ross Deacon crashing over for the final try of the match. Cowley added his sixth conversion for the final score of 47-10. 

Head Coach Blake Bradford expressed his excitement stating, "One of our goals for this week was to start well and I'm happy with how the guys build pressure early on and used our opportunities. We can still improve on converting our line breaks a bit better. A big focus for us will be on limiting consecutive errors and allowing teams opportunities in our half. We let Mystic back in the game towards the end of the first half, but I'm proud of how the men responded in the second half, backing our plan and playing to our strengths."

The B-side game took place afterwards, with the Running Eagles earning a dominant 52-7 victory.
Tries: Bradley Crane, Tabonga Ngonyamo, Donovan Law (2), Karch Hoffman, Matt Carrion, Adrian Escobedo, Sean Lenzsch, Orrin Bizer
Conversions: Bradley Crane (6)

The men's club rugby team will return to action on Saturday, October 23, as they welcome Old Blue to Silverbacks Park in Atlanta, Ga. on the upper field at 2:30 PM.