Team Photo!!

Frederick traveled in strength to Chicago, seeded #14 in the National Men’s Division II Rugby Sweet Sixteen this past weekend. After a good practice run Friday, Frederick came out to face #3 Snake River, Idaho. Snake River proved to be a very physical, hard rucking team. For the first 20 minutes they pressured the Frederick line, but only came away with 3 points. Frederick woke up on offense, returned the pressure and Jay Myles slotted the equalizing penalty. This was quickly followed by a great attack down the right side of the pitch, Rob Schuster, and Eric Aldinger handling the ball to put Jay Reeder over for the try. A touchline conversion by Myles followed by a penalty gave Frederick a 13 - 3 advantage. However, lack of heart in defense allowed Snake River back in the game, scoring a converted try and penalty to leave the score tied 13 - 13 at the half. Early in the second half, a misplayed Frederick backrow move gave Snake River an attacking chance, the converted try putting River back into the lead, 20 - 13. Frederick were not to be swayed, the defense tightened, the offense was threatening and a great back-line move led to Myles going in for the try, converted by Kenny Orndoff, 20 - 20. Replacement fly-half Will Brewington came on, linked up with Schuster to create space in the middle, Brewington touching down for the try converted by Chris Sipe, 27 - 20. In the last minute, Sipe picked off River for a 50 meter run shadowed by wing man Tobin Triebel. Final score Frederick 32, Snake River 20. On Sunday Frederick took on Metropolis, Minnesota. Metropolis’ huge pack took away the lineout, but the Frederick front row, worked well in the scrum. This match though, belonged to the Frederick Backs. Marshaled by full-back Schuster and fly-half Brewington, the backs were penetrating, fast and brutally efficient. In the first half, Jason Delauter touched down twice, with tries from Schuster and Eric Aldinger. A conversion by Sipe rounded out the scoring Frederick 22, Metropolis 0 at the break. The second half started off with a bang as Schuster touched down his second, converted by Sipe, 29 - 0. Frederick, in an attempt to develop multiphase ball, lost focus for the next twenty minutes, allowing Metropolis to score twice, narrowing the score to 29 - 10, before Aldinger, in flying support of Schuster scored the back-breaking try converted by Sipe, 36 - 10. Frederick move on to face Worcester, Mass. in San Diego May 30th at the Final four. The other semi-final matches Montauk, NY against Wisconsin.

The squad traveled to San Diego in two major groups arriving Thursday with some smaller groups getting in Friday. Weather was good for playing (dry and 70C - a little cool at the beach bars!) The squad had a good run through on Friday around 11:00am (the pitch was absolutely beautiful) then met up for the team dinner at Uno’s. On Saturday morning the team assembled in the Coach’s room around 9:30am for a last minute team talk then off to the pitch. The match kicked-off at 11:30am, Frederick into a stiff breeze against Worcester (Wormtown) RFC. One of the weekend’s most irritating things was the very loud play-by-play announcer, with huge speakers on the sidelines. Very quickly it was apparent that the wind was going to be a major factor. The announcer pointed out that "Rob Schuster’s clearance kick almost made 5 yards!!" The announcer also pointed out helpful things such as "and Kretzer seems to have forgotten something, the ball!" and "Reading really fell for that move!" (when their flippin winger swerved, I fell over and he cleared the ball 80m!!) The match was frantic, lots of nervous handling errors by Frederick, allowing Worcester to stay in our 22m and put pressure on us. A nice break by the Worcester right wing was terminated by Rob Schuster’s crushing tackle (much to the delight of the Hayward Griffin’s Tongan’s on the sideline!!) In about the 20th minute, from a ruck on our 5m, the scrum half picked up the ball, used the Ref as a lead blocker and dived over to score an unconverted try. Worcester were not to cross our line again, but did manage to add 4 penalty kicks to make it Worcester 17, Frederick 0 at the half. Coach Redmond came on to the field (and after Snake River we were all anticipating a roasting!) but very calmly, John proceeded to point out how to attack the Worcester defense and to consolidate the ball. Out came Frederick, wind to our backs and things started to happen. (Forgive some inaccuracies here OK!!). Will "Wheels" Brewington, sliced through the defense to touch down. Rob Schuster converted. Then came the time for Lance French, dotting down for another try, Rob to convert. Then a tap penalty by Eric K, out to Larry "I’m so old I’m going to retire now" Grimm, for the go ahead try. 19 - 17. The pressure was maintained, a great break by Rob, followed by him Michael Jordan behind the head - no look pass to Jason "Slash" Delauter for another Try, also converted by Rob. With just minutes to go a beautifully worked Animal front peel from the line-out (throw from Mike "Tool-time" Taylor tapped down by Jay "Bird" Reeder to the peeling Jeff Lutton who dived over for the score) rounded out the match 31 - 17. What a day!! Only injury to report was Chris Sipe damaged his shoulder but was covered perfectly by Tobin "Trooper T" Triebel. We were then able to stay and watch a marathon between Life and Old Blue (NY), going through a second overtime before an Old Blue drop kick won the match. The other Div I match saw last year’s Div II Champs the Hayward Griffins take on last year’s Div I Champs Aspen. After a great start by the Griffin’s, the difference in the front rows became painfully clear, Aspen basically just lifted them off their feet every scrum. Aspen won 44 - 22.

Frederick was well prepared for the final and Wisconsin. A film of their Saturday match revealed that the team used rolling mauls to slow down the game and starve the opposition of possession. Some of the Frederick big boys were selected to counter this (namely Pinky and Perky or Tommy "Tiny" Angel and Eric "The Claw" Aldinger). Wisconsin came out strong, within the first 5 minutes they had rolled over a try. An unlucky casualty early on was Dan "Moo" Makosy, after taking a minute for a shoulder stinger, Moo went down in a scrum, caught his foot in the turf and popped his Achilles tendon. For the next 25 minutes Frederick put on one of the most impressive goal line stances I have ever seen. Wave after wave of punches and mauls were launched at Frederick. Only one more time did they cross the line, 10 - 0 to Wisconsin after 30 minutes. Then came Frederick, a couple of exciting jail breaks by Rob Schuster led to us putting pressure on their line, with Eric Kretzer scoring a try. About this time (Frederick was going into the wind) the Wisconsin team was getting very tired, when we turned around at the half down 5 - 10, things seemed about to change. However, Wisconsin proceeded to play like Lancaster, taking minutes every 3 minutes, allowing their players to rest and disrupting any flow that Frederick could muster. Penalty kicks were traded,