DHS Rugby Club Qualifies for State Division I Championship Match

Dexter Devils Triumph in Playoffs Against Rockford, West Ottawa, now Head to State Final

For the second successive year Dexter Rugby Football Club’s Dexter Devils (the Dexter High School Rugby Club) have advanced to the State Division One Championship match, after quarter-final and semi-final victories on Saturday, May 17, at the High School Playoffs, hosted again by Dexter RFC.  On Saturday morning at Manly Bennett Park, Hamburg, the Devils defeated Rockford 27-0, while the afternoon’s semi-final against West Ottawa HS, the no 1 team in the Western Conference, saw the Devils come from behind to win 13-12, despite playing most of the match a man down.

This was the second year in a row that Dexter had hosted the playoffs and, once again, massive efforts by Dexter coaches Paul Burke, Doug Karaska, Eric Calhoun, Steve Turosky, Steve Merz, and a host of parent volunteers assured that the playoffs, in which twenty-four high school teams from four divisions participated, were a huge success.

A place in the Championship match against Grand Rapids Catholic Central (at West Ottawa HS Rugby Stadium, Holland, May 31) was Dexter’s reward for another fine season.  However, many of the Devils’ passionate supporters must have spent the past week wondering if last season’s run to the Championship match could possibly be repeated, after seeing Dexter give up far more regular-season points than in the last two years and lose their first regular-season match in three years (home to Troy, 24-29, just ten days ago).  The annual trip to the Midwest High School Championships in Elkhart, Indiana, had also provided food for thought, as Dexter’s A side were beaten 51-0 by Cathedral (Indianapolis), no 1 team in the nation, before defeating Culver Academy 13-7 (try – Makin; 2 conversions and a penalty goal – Robinett) and then succumbing rather meekly to Brunswick 22-5 (try – Makin), to finish sixth.  In earlier Eastern Conference matches, Dexter had defeated Birmingham 26-5 (tries: Martinez, Hall, Mayrand; conversions – Robinett), Washtenaw 57-0 (tries – Wittenberg (2), Bryson (2), Mayrand (2),Rayer, Staebler; conversions – Burke (2), Makin, Staebler), Dearborn 22-13 (tries – Haas (2), Poirier; penalty, 2 conversions – Robinett), and Livonia 53-0.  In a non-conference match, Dexter also defeated Toledo Junior Celtics 33-12 in Toledo (tries: Staebler, Makin, Bryson, Hartmann, Robinett; conversions – Burke (3), Robinett) .

Dexter’s pack has been powerful and effective most of the season, rucking well and usually winning its set pieces: Pat Mayrand (So, DHS), Jorge Martinez (Sr, DHS), and Jonah Hancock (Sr, DHS) generally start in the front row; Mike Merz (Jr DHS) and Viktor Morris (Sr, DHS) start as locks; and Jake Hall (Sr, Brighton HS), Erick Leon (Sr, DHS), and Spencer Flannery (Sr, Grass Lake HS) have been the starting loose forwards. Excellent support has come from Noah Keen (Jr, DHS) at prop, Nick Hubbard (Jr, DHS) at lock, Tyler Even (So, DHS) at flanker, Zach Hartman (Sr, DHS) at no 8, among others. Injury has restricted the appearances of lock Carsten Vestegaard (Jr, DHS).

Dexter has always had talented backs, and this year has been no exception, but somehow things have not always clicked in the three-quarters, with handling errors and slow ball movement sometimes costing the team points on offense and missed tackles proving expensive on defense, while the fullback position has not seemed entirely settled.  The back line has been anchored by two three-year starters at half-back: scrum-half and Captain Guy Burke (Sr, DHS) and fly-half Gordon Makin (Sr, DHS), who, along with prop Mayrand, has been among the leading try-scorers – clear indications of the team’s struggles to run the ball in from the back.  Behind them five of Chris Bryson (JR, DHS), Tristin Staebler (Jr, DHS), usual place-kicker Corey Robinett (Sr, Grass Lake HS), Derek Wittenberg (Jr, DHS), Adam Haas (Jr, DHS), and Jake Rayer (Jr, DHS) have generally provided the centers, wings, and full back, with excellent support off the bench from Corey Poirier (Jr, DHS) and Luke Sagmeister (Jr, DHS).

On Saturday the Dexter faithful flocked to Manly Bennett, feeling a mixture of excitement and trepidation: the route to the State Championship match would lie past two perennial powerhouses from the Western Conference: Rockford, who defeated Dexter in at tight semi-final two years ago, and the no 1 team in the West this year and State Champions two years ago, West Ottawa, where Rugby is a varsity sport.  The agonizing defeat to Troy on May 8 probably served as a catalyst for Saturday’s events.   19-0 down at home, Dexter had come back to make it 24-24 with tries from Haas, Mayrand and Makin (2), but no sooner had the fly-half’s quick tap-and-run penalty, followed by the scrum-half’s conversion, given the Dexter touchline paroxyms of delight, than handling errors gave the ball away inside the home 22-metre line and poor tackling let Troy in for a late, match-winning try, celebrated with great energy by the away team, newly promoted from Division 2 and now crowned as no 1 team from the East for the playoffs. 

After reflecting on the Troy loss and the performance against Brunswick at Elkhart, Coach Paul Burke decided for the playoffs to risk radical changes in the Dexter back-line.  Thus an unfamiliar line-up greeted Dexter’s many fans on Saturday morning: speedster Staebler was moved to inside center and told to look for interceptions, Robinett went to outside center, Bryson and Wittenberg to the wings, and Haas to fullback (where he played most of last year).  The first half against Rockford was tense, but the Devils spent most of it in the opposition half, their excellent defense providing good ball consistently (Burke made his opposite number’s day very difficult with his speed of reaction, while Dexter’s tackling was far above the season average, and props Hancock and Mayrand provided power and athleticism).  The Devils scored late in the half when Makin repeated his quick tap against Troy to catch the Rockford defense unprepared after a penalty inside the 22.  5-0 at half time meant it was anyone’s game, but three minutes into the second half Staebler took advantage of Rockford’s leaden ball movement to intercept the inside center and run half the length of the field, untouched, for a brilliant try.  When flanker Erick Leon repeated the feat a few minutes later, and Robinett converted and then scored a penalty goal from 20 metres out, the Dexter fans on the grassy bank above the (excellent) field were in seventh heaven.  Staebler scored his second try from a third outstanding Dexter interception late in the match, Robinett converted, and Dexter celebrated a 27-0 win and the team’s best performance of the year.  Tackling had been excellent; the forwards had dominated set pieces and rucked well, with Hancock especially inspiring and Leon a ferocious and mobile presence in the loose; the half-backs had shone; and the line had exceeded all expectations, with the positional changes looking a master stroke from Coach Burke.

A quarter-final win meant that the job was half-done, but Dexter fans and players noted that every other Eastern team had gone down – no 1 Troy had been badly beaten by Sparta, no 4 in the West, while Catholic Central had beaten Dearborn comfortably and West Ottawa had overwhelmed Birmingham. So West Ottawa (with only one loss all season) in the semi-final would be a huge challenge.  The challenge looked even bigger to supporters who arrived to watch Dexter’s pre-match warm-ups only to see Robinett gingerly wrapping a thigh and nursing a groin strain, while Makin, who had attempted just two place kicks in three years, practiced his penalty- and conversion-kicking.  Rayer, it was learned, would replace Robinett at outside center; Makin would do the place-kicking. 

The match began with Dexter under heavy pressure beneath their own posts, repeatedly penalized just metres out.  After about five minutes under the cosh, Dexter finally succumbed as the West Ottawa pack took the ball over, but the conversion got nowhere near the goal posts and 5-0 looked far from secure for the visitors as Dexter replied aggressively.  However, things turned worse for Dexter when marauding no 8 Flannery was shown a red card for stamping in the ruck – Coach Burke had instructed his forwards to ruck out any opponents lying on the ground beside the ball-carrier (a perfectly legitimate response to a team trying to impede recycling of the ball), but the referee judged that Flannery had deliberately struck an opponent’s head, and he was out for the match and will now miss the final.  Dexter played the rest of the match with fourteen men.  But the hosts responded to the early set-backs with intensity and efficiency, driving the ball upfield from every position.  West Ottawa, in their turn, were repeatedly penalized close to the try line, until Mayrand was awarded a penalty try (the first Dexter have been given in three years) out on the right wing.  Crucially, a penalty try means the conversion attempt is from in front of goal (not from in line with the point where the ball was touched down, as is the case with a normal try), and Makin delighted the fans standing and sitting on the bank above the field as his conversion attempt split the posts to give Dexter a two-point lead.  Late in the half West Ottawa lost a forward to the sin bin for dangerously lifting Makin off the ground in the ruck, and then another West Ottawan was sin-binned for infractions at the line-out.  On half-time, the Devils, briefly a man up, were awarded a penalty some 25 metres out; Makin stepped up and split the posts again, to send Dexter in with a 10-5 lead. 

Dexter held the lead for most of the second half, with both the fly-half and the inside center coming close on kicks they couldn’t quite gather in the in-goal area, but when West Ottawa was restored to 15 men the pressure grew, until, with two minutes to go, a kick down the middle from inside the West Ottawa 22 took a good bounce for the opposition, beating the Devils full-back and allowing the onrushing West Ottawa man to gather and run in under the posts.  The try was duly converted and West Ottawa’s vocal fans greeted joyously the 12-10 lead.  Dexter, however, would not lie down; recovering the ball inside their 22, the Devils kicked deep and the West Ottawan who caught the ball was (somewhat unluckily) ruled to have knocked on.  Another moment of indiscipline would now decide the game: a West Ottawa player decided to instruct the referee on the knock-on law, using language the referee (whom only captains are entitled to address on the field of play) judged inappropriate.  Instead of a scrum 15 metres out and well to the left of the goal posts, the Devils were awarded a penalty and West Ottawa a yellow card.  A moment of high tension ensued as scrum-half and Captain Guy Burke consulted with his fly-half (who had been off the field, in the blood bin, for several minutes earlier in the second half).  Burke decided to take the kick himself and sent the Dexter touchline wild with delight as he put it over the bar, giving Dexter a one-point lead.  A minute of chaotic Rugby followed the kick-off, until a low kick from Wittenberg, responding to his scrum-half's demands to "kick it out", ricocheted into touch off a West Ottawa body and the referee blew for no-side.  Relief and delight overwhelmed the Dexter fans, while their opposite numbers seemed inconsolable (and far from delighted at the officiating).

Dexter parents and coaches spent the next two hours clearing the fields, taking down goal posts, and putting the soccer goals back in place for Hamburg Township, which had provided an outstanding venue for some great Rugby (one Dexter parent described the fields as “the best Rugby pitches” she had ever seen, apart from those at the superb Rugby Grounds in Elkhart).  Meanwhile, Dexter’s battered heroes headed home to prepare for what must have been a very well-celebrated Prom Night, knowing that they will play Rugby to the very end of this season.

For the second year in a row DRFC has also fielded a “B” team (equivalent to a JV team or 2nd XV), consisting primarily of players new to the game.  The B side, playing in Division 3, won two matches in the Eastern conference, defeating Birmingham 22-20 under the lights away, and Washtenaw of Division 1 25-24 in an away friendly.  Dexter B, captained by fourteen-year-old scrum-half Neil Makin (Fr, DHS, brother of the A team fly-half), with key contributions from, among others, fly-half Jared Juback (Jr, DHS), forward Nick Hubbard, no 8 Zach Hartmann, lock Aidan Hochrein (Jr, DHS), flanker Tyler Even, center Corey Poirier, and fullback Luke Sagmeister, played excellent Rugby throughout the season, with a narrow loss away to Division 2 Lakeview (19-15; tries from Juback and Hochrein, conversion and penalty goal from Hartmann) probably the best performance in conference play.  The season highlight, however, was a first-ever win for a Dexter B side at Elkhart, against Archbishop Fisher’s JV.  In the first half of that match, Hubbard, playing hooker for the first time ever, ran in a try from Neil Makin’s quick tap from fifteen metres; Makin, pressed in to place-kick with Hartmann called up for the A team, tried a drop-kick conversion that sailed agonizingly just wide.  Dexter B withstood intense pressure for most of the second half, only to concede an unconverted try late in the match.  With no extra time possible because of the tournament schedule, the match went straight to a penalty shoot-out. The first three penalties taken by each side were missed, taking the shoot-out to sudden death; Fisher’s missed again, whereupon Sagmeister stepped up to the tee and elegantly slotted home to the boundless delight of his young team mates.

Since the Devils play as a club, not as a varsity team, they are able to welcome players not only from the Dexter school district, but also from other school districts where Rugby may not be available.  DRFC coaches encourage anyone interested in playing the sport next year to get in touch.  The Devils normally practice at the Webster Church fields and play home matches at Manly Bennett Park.

Dexter’s squad list, with further details of the Dexter Rugby program, may be accessed here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/aemydjhns0dt7pl/DRFC%20Team%20Sheet%202014.pdf.  For further  information on Dexter Rugby, go to the Facebook page for “Dexter Rugby” or to the club web site: www.dexterrugby.com.  Follow DRFC on Twitter @DexterRugby.