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Health & Fitness

DHS Rugby Club Beats State Champions 30-10

The Dexter Devils A team defeated the reigning State champions, West Ottawa High School, 30-10 in Holland, Michigan, on Friday night.

Originally published: April 30.

Friday night’s 290-mile round trip to Holland, Michigan, proved very well worth the effort for the Dexter Devils  – Dexter Rugby Football Club’s high school team – as Dexter’s A team defeated reigning State High School Champions West Ottawa 30-10 under the lights in their new Rugby facility. Two tries each from powerful prop Zack Wallace and lightning-fast right-wing Matt Kasten, along with two conversions and two penalty goals from left-wing Corey Robinett – surely one of the best goal-kickers in the region – gave the Devils victory by a margin that surprised the DRFC coaches and delighted the numerous traveling supporters. 

Tomorrow (Wednesday, 1 May) both Dexter’s A and B teams play their last home matches against the A and B teams of  local rivals Brighton at Hamburg’s Manly Bennett Park on Merrill Road.  The A match kick-off is at 5 pm, with the B match following at 7.  On Friday both teams head to Elkhart, Indiana, for the Midwest Boys Rugby Championship, where the A team faces one of Ohio’s perennial giants, Westerville, in its first match in the Club Bracket, while the B team plays three matches in the JV/Developmental pool (B team opponents are: the JV teams of Fishers High, Indiana, and Culver Academies, Indiana; and Warsaw Area Boys Rugby Club, also of Indiana).

West Ottawa HS, where Rugby became a varsity sport this year, graduated thirty players from its championship-winning club last year, but even in this “rebuilding year” the state’s best program (four championships in five years) can claim seventy players, enough to field teams in all three western divisions of Michigan High School Rugby.  When DRFC Head Coaches Paul Burke and Doug Karaska scheduled this match between the 2012 winners of Division One East and Division One West they were probably thinking more in terms of “experience” and “measuring ourselves against the best” than a happy ride back to Dexter with a 20-point victory.  However, the tone for the match was set right from the kick-off: Dexter’s pack followed up the tackle on the Panther who caught Tony Shiguango’s kick-off by winning the ball in the ensuing ruck, and the Dexter backs took the ball into the 22-metre area, recycling effectively and taking tap penalties as West Ottawa were penalized for infringements, until scrum-half Guy Burke was able to tap a final penalty from five metres out and pass to Zack Wallace, of Grass Lake HS, who, with the pack behind him, was unstoppable.   West Ottawa’s first penetration inside the Dexter 22-metre line led to a very similar score, despite some fifteen-man defense, and the Dexter fans, seeing the Panthers’ prop break the try line – the first points conceded this season – had good reason to expect a tense, attritional battle for the rest of the match.    However, that equalizing try was the closest West Ottawa would get.  A second Dexter try was created by fly-half Gordon Makin’s up-and-under kick, which Makin caught on the bounce and took to two metres out, where, on the tackle, he was able to get the ball into the hands of Kasten for another five points.  Kasten’s second try broke the game open: he ran on to an excellent kick from inside-centre Shiguango, beating the Panther back line with searing pace to touch down  for another five.  Corey Robinett, of GLHS, had been unable to convert either of the first two tries, but he made up for these rare lapses by converting Kasten’s second try, to take Dexter to a 17-5 lead.  The Panthers replied with another try from their powerful prop, but were unable to convert it and also missed a penalty goal; when Wallace powered over for the fourth Dexter try of the half, Dexter led 24-5.  Robinett added a penalty goal and the half ended with Dexter leading 27-5. 

The Devils’ no 8 was sin-binned late in the half, so Dexter started the second half a man down, with the Dexter fans in the stands expecting a ferocious counter-attack from the home team.  It never came, even when Dexter were a man down again after the no 8 was red-carded  – Robinett’s second penalty goal was the only score of the second half.  The Devils’ defense was solid throughout the game, with excellent tackling breaking up attacks from the Panthers’ forwards, while in the West Ottawa back line only the full back looked capable of breaking through.  

When the referee blew for no side, the Dexter substitutes were all in the game, after Robinett’s second penalty goal had left the Panthers requiring three converted tries to win with only three minutes left.  Celebrations on the field and in the stands were predictably enthusiastic.

After the match, Coach Burke praised the team’s ball movement, noting that their unconventional passing helped them recycle the ball quickly and effectively, while Assistant Coach Steve Turosky was full of praise for the Devils’ ferocious tackling.  Meanwhile, Coach Karaska was deep in conversation with the Davenport University Coach who had watched the match and taken a liking to several of the DRFC seniors.  The reactions of Dexter’s own fans suggested a mixture of surprise and delight, with one seasoned observer noting that the Devils’ line-out play was the best she had seen in two years of following the team (substitutions meant that scrum-half Guy Burke ended the match in the line-out, as the man to lift, but he performed this unaccustomed task exceptionally well). 

The hypercritical might note that there is still work to be done: Dexter’s rucking, although much improved, could be even more effective; there was a tendency for the man with the ball to become isolated in a number of different situations, both at the back and from the pack; and at practice this week Coach Burke was still repeating his mantra: “Don’t run sideways”.  But Friday was not a day to think about areas for improvement, or even about the challenges ahead.  A starting XV including eight men new to the game this season had gone into the Panthers’ lair and slain a formidable foe.

On Tuesday, the B team lost at Manly Bennett by just two points to a very good Berkeley A team in Division III East.  Coach Burke praised his young players for an excellent performance against a side that had demolished opponents whom Dexter B had beaten only narrowly.  He noted that his team controlled the game for long stretches, and could have won, adding that “A couple of lapses in concentration and a mix-up in a scrum were the difference. This was a fabulous learning experience for everyone”.  Coach Burke also said that the team now knows it can ruck with the best of them.  Among the backs, he singled out the full-back, DHS sophomore Derek Wittenberg, for his “fantastic tackling…without his three try-saving tackles it would not have been close. As Derek proved you don't have to be big to bring them down, just do it right.”

The Devils hope to see a big turn-out at Manly Bennett Park for tomorrow’s local derbies, before turning their attention to the stern challenges posed in Elkhart, Indiana, this weekend. Dexter’s records so far this season (home team first):

Downriver 12 Dexter B 14
Dexter B 50 Grosse Point 5
Shelby 5 Dexter B 17
Berkeley 17 Dexter B 15 Deter A 26 Birmingham 0

Dexter A 83 Livonia 0
Washtenaw 0 Dexter A 53
West Ottawa 10 Dexter A 30  

Dexter’s team sheet for the West Ottawa match can be accessed here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/uigcqp61imcijfr/DRFC%20Team%20Sheet%202013%2026%20April.pdf.

For more information on Dexter Rugby, go to the Facebook page for “Dexter Rugby 2013” or to the club web site: www.dexterrugby.com

Follow DRFC on twitter @DexterRugby.

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