UWW Rugby wins back to back National Championships

(Team photo provided by Dominic Urso)

The UWW Rugby Team won the USA Rugby Collegiate Division II Championship last December and again last weekend at Furman University, Greenville, SC. In route to this year’s Championship, Whitewater defeated Pittsburgh State University (KS) 61-15 in the round of 16, the Grand Valley State University (MI) 24-12 in the round of 8. Both matches were held at Miami University, Oxford, OH. The team traveled two weeks later to Furman University to meet up with North Dakota State University in the semi-finals. The Warhawks defeated the Bison 51-25 on Saturday, then met up with Virginia Military Institute in the finals on Sunday. VMI proved to be a tenacious team. Despite the Warhawks putting the first points on the board, VMI led at half 27 -17. This was the first time the Warhawks trailed at half all season. The team battled back to tie the match 27 all with 8 minutes remaining to play. Still tied with less than two minutes remaining, UWW scored their final try and made the conversion to take a 34 – 27 lead which they held until the final whistle. The team is coached by Matt Pederson (Lake Mills), Pat O’Connor and Tim Probst (Whitewater)

(Photo by Matt Pederson) This is Shay Haase (UWW grey uniforms) stealing the ball from VMI at their line out. VMI threw the ball in to their designated jumper and Shay beat him to the ball and gave UWW possession.