State Semi-Final Rugby vs WestLake

Friday 5-11-18      Up to Lehi we go.  Semi-finals started Friday morning at 10am up at the University of Utah Rugby Pitch.  The day before in St. George it was 104 degrees.  Up in Salt Lake it was 56 and rainy!  We froze!!!  We had to win this game and we had not played WestLake all year because they chickened out and didn't come down to play against us when they were scheduled too.  So we won by forfeit.  So, we really had no idea how good they would be. But we were told that if we lost we would have to come back up next week to play in the consolation bracket for 3 and 4th place.  We were not going to do that! It rained the entire hour that they warmed up and the entire hour that they played.  But they WON!    Here are some of the highlights.  The pictures are not the best because it was raining. 

 Our first Try.

 The kick was GOOOOOD!

 Ben catching a super bad throw to him. 

 Our 2nd Try.

 The kick was not so good. 

 Here is a series of Stockon Wittwer.  He was killing it in this game.

 But...then he got headbutted in the nose.  That's him, far left, bent over, holding his face in his hands.  And it bled like crazy!  So, he went off the field and cam back later looking like...

 THIS!!!  Oh man.  I was sitting by his mom and we laughed so hard.  You would think that they would have gotten OB tampons that don't have the string on them or at least cut the sting off of this one so it wasn't quite as obvious.  Poor kid has no idea.  On day he'll be mortified.  It's a good thing these boys are just in middle school in Utah.  They have no idea.  But he played the rest of the game like the champ that he is and found out that night that his nose was broken.

Another good kick out of the back field from Ben, which led to this Try...

 Another kick for conversion points.

 And another KICK out of the back field!

 I think we hurt three of their players.  They weren't near as conditioned as our players were.  But our team always shows respect and never looses their temper.  This sport has done a world of good for Ben in that aspect.

 Here is the end score.  We let them score in the last 2 minutes of the game.  They had great defense and if it wasn't for Ben kicking it out of the back field so much they might have score a lot more.  These kids play smart and hard!  They deserve the win!