UNCC vs. Chapel Hill

In college rugby, the fall is used to train new players and the season is set by the individual teams.  The first game of the fall is supposed to be against an easy team so you can teach your rookies without a lot of pressure.  Unfortunately - or fortunately - depending on your view,  no one easy wanted to play us early in the fall.  UNC-Chapel Hill was the only team willing to take us on.  

Chapel Hill is a D1, top eight school.  We are top eight, but in D2.  We knew on the first day of practice that we would have our work cut out for us.

Chapel Hill brought 46 players to our 26 and the game was set with 4 20minute quarters.  The goal of both teams was to have a scrimmage where everyone could play.  Mean Green wanted to teach not only the rookies, but Carolina that we are as good as they are.

The first quarter started off as a show down, UNCC scored two tries off the backline, but wasn't able to make the kicks.  UNCC dominated both the lineouts and the scrums, making it easy to pass the ball off to the backline.  Carolina was good on the tackle, and quick to poach the ball long before a ruck could be set.  Carolina quickly put in two more tries, and made their kicks!  Carolina was up, but not for long.  UNCC got it together and started to communicate on the field. We turned the game around with three more tries to win the game 27-14!

MVP: Maddy Clark, for keeping her cool and leading the team

Pack Player of the Game: Anjee McNary, for all the tackles & runs

   Back Player of the Game: Rise Shine, for playing every position, making every tackle, and those runs!

Defense Player of the Game: Jessica James for being at every ruck and taking those down who needed it.

Offense Player of the Game: Meghan Bradsher, for communication and the amazing runs.

 

Thank you to the Charlotte Men for hosting our game and Carolina for traveling to play us!

Away at UNC-Chapel Hill

It was a little chilly on October 16th, when the team travelled to Chapel Hill to play the Tarheels B side. 

Going in, we knew it would be a tough game.  UNC is a consistently national ranked team, and even their B side is good.  We developed a game plan and decided to play our best game.

Within the first 5 minutes of the game, prop Liz scored our first try and set the tone for the game.  Once we knew tries were possible against UNC, there was no stopping us.  We played the skills we'd practiced, improving our rucking game and on field awareness.  3 more tries were made by 8 man Victoria, Flyhalf-Maddy, and Scrumhalf-Christina.  UNC was only able to score one try - leaving a final score of 22-5.  Way to go MEAN GREEN!