In their fifth meeting of the teams, St. Bonaventure University Men’s Rugby team traveled to Penn State and emerged with an 18-15 win. It was a historic first win over the Nittany Lions in a key National Collegiate Rugby match.
Bonnies Head Coach Tui Osborne has won collegiate national championships and has developed talent at the collegian, academy, and professional rugby level. The win against Penn State shows that with persistence, recruiting, and good coaching that a national-caliber program may be built. Players that want to play at the highest level have an outstanding option if they attend St. Bonaventure University.
The Match recap will not be an ideal one as the scoring recap is based on both teams’ Twitter accounts.
Penn State has an early attempt at goal with a 49-meter kick by co-captain Dalton Musselman, which was missed, but given the chance again later, he connected for a 3-0 lead.
The Bonnies answered back after a Penn State scrum when Niku Otineru picked up and scored the first try of the contest to lead 5-3 after an unsuccessful conversion.
St. Bonaventure extended the lead to 8-3 with a penalty goal by Keelin Coyle with no further scoring prior to the break.
Early in the second half, Bonnies’ scrumhalf Sebastiano Villani, was sent to the bin. Penn State capitalized with a try by Tom Tressard to knot the match at 8 all.
Bonnies inside center Keelin Coyle slotted a penalty goal to reclaim the lead, 8-11 before the Nittany Lions answered back with a try by CJ and conversion by Dalton Musselman, 15-11.
CJ carries it into the try zone, after stealing the ball from Bonnies in their 20’s. Musselman converts. Score: 15-11
— Penn State Men’s Rugby (@PennStateMRugby) October 16, 2021
It is unclear who the mysterious CJ is right now. Hopefully, that will be clarified soon and the article edited.
The Bonnies would score one final time with Sy Mendenhall adding the try and Keelin Coyle converting for the historic 18-15 win.
St. Bonaventure’s record improved to 5-2. They opened the season with four wins over Buffalo RFC, Colgate, Mount St. Mary’s, and Syracuse, before a narrow D1A league loss to the US Naval Academy 21-17. A loss to Army followed before this past week’s win over Penn State. The Bonnies’ regular season concludes with an away match next week against Notre Dame College followed by a match against Kutztown.
Penn State opened the season with three consecutive road wins over the University of Mary Washington, Delaware, and Kutztown, before an away loss to Army at West Point. With the loss to St. Bonaventure, the team has a 3-2 record. Next week they face a formidable team in Ohio State before finishing the season against the US Naval Academy.
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