September 12, 2016
Village Lions Win Against White Plains to Open D2 Rugby Season
Doug Coil
The Village Lions hosted White Plains in a season opener Empire GU Rugby D2 Men’s match over the weekend and emerged with a 25-18 win.
The Village Lions forwards went into contact in the middle before center Bryan McCorkle went in for the try, which was then converted by Hubert for a 7-0 lead.
White Plains answered back with a pair of penalty kicks by wing Connor McCauley to narrow the lead to within one. The Lions scored again in the 26th minute with a try by Bull and went into halftime up 12-6.
It took five minutes into the second half for White Plains before the Warpigs had their first try of the season. This occurred from an attack by the centers, as flyhalf Zach White went in for a try to narrow the Lions lead to 12-11.
Errors started to mount and the Lions drew a penalty try in the 55th minute as flanker James Tregurtha sent to the bin. The Lions now led 19-11. Hubert then added another penalty kick with 10 minutes left to increase the Lions lead to 22-11.
White Plains then drove down the field and eightman Andrew Ianna scored in the corner. McCauley hit the conversion and the score was now 22-18. Just prior to the match ending, the Lions kicked another penalty kick to end the match 25-18 in the Lions favor.
White Plains Head Coach Chris Dahlem said “When a team makes a total of 19 errors throughout a game, coming out on top becomes almost impossible. We gave away 3 tries, 1 of which was a penalty try, on our own errors. The Lions maintained possession, but never really applied pressure to break our defense.”
“The Warpig backline looked very promising, consistently breaking the Lion defense at set pieces. Lead by vice-captain Onye Onwukanjo, the backline defense was practically impenetrable under very hot conditions. He is a total gift to the sport of rugby, Dahlem praised about Onwukanjo. To lead that way from the front as a 20 year old in this league is just incredible.”
White Plains gained a bonus point with the Lions narrow win. This week the Warpigs face rivals Old Blue D2 at home at White Plains High School. The match is the featured event for the annual JoJo Moore Weekend.
Dahlem added “Games against Old Blue require our players to give everything for 80 minutes. They don’t really get much bigger than this. We will regroup this week and our players will play with a sense of urgency and passion that will bring us to that next level.”
The Village Lions travel to Long Island for a Saturday, September 17th match.
