I'll just copy this direct from the Old Maroon listserv.

quote:

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Dear Old Maroon,

the Texas A&M Rugby Club took a big and long awaited step forward this
Saturday when it qualified for the National Sweet 16 tournament on the
backs of 48-10 and 22-11 victories over OU and UT respectively. Perhaps a
little flat after the emotional day on Saturday, the A&M club could not
match the intensity of the Air Force Academy on Sunday, going down 49-12 in
the Western Championship game. The academy team has been in our current
shoes for the past 3 years, qualifying for the Nationals but coming in 2nd
to Wyoming each time. The club learned a lot from this weekend and Sunday's
match in particular - the games are not over just by qualifying and
everyone expects a better effort in the corresponding match next season.

The Texas A&M Rugby club travels to Berkeley for Sweet Sixteen pool play
where they will meet Navy on April 19th and with a victory will meet
Berkeley on April 20th. Everyone has worked long and hard to get the chance
to play teams of this calibre and it is a credit to all coaches and
players, past and present. Thanks to all.

On a more practical note, obviously buying 25+ airline tickets within 14
days of travel is not going to come cheap. Any and all assistance in this
regard would be greatly appreciated.

Apologies for the brief report but it was a very long weekend. Thanks to
all that made it out to the games, the support was awesome and the boys
really lifted as a result.

Cheers,

Craig Coates
Head Coach, Texas A&M Men's RFC

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Here is a link to the tournament schedule:
http://www.usarugby.org/cgi-bin/02/championships/show.pl?competitionId=73
Texas A&M is the #2 team from the West sending them into a tough bracket with U. Cal.-Berkley the defending division 1 champs for 12 straight years.


[This message has been edited by Rugbyman93 (edited 4/12/2003 6:58p).]

Great

San Francisco Ags..

Ags take on Navy at 11:00 am Saturday in Berkeley.

An update for how the Aggies did in the Sweet 16:

quote:

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Dear Old Maroon,

just a brief update for those of you that have not heard already. The
Aggies lost 37-13 to a very good Navy side on the Saturday of the Sweet 16
tournament. The boys seemed a little nervous and tentative at times and
made some unfortunate decisions under pressure. Tries on the 1st play in
each half and the last play in the first half were the difference in the
game. However, they played their hearts out and next time we meet them will
be less intimidated. As it turned out Navy played their best side against
us, only making one change for the game against Cal the next day. Navy were
winning the game and competing well for the first 15 minutes and then
tiredness set in and Cal ran out comfortable winners to advance to the Final 4.

The previous day Cal had defeated a game UCSB side who put up 29 points on
the defending champs before ultimately losing 67-29. The Aggies took it
easy Saturday night, determined to come out and maintain their 9th seed
that they entered with. In the early match against UCSB we dominated in
nearly every facet of the game and ran away with a solid 59-11 victory, a
great finish to an awesome season.

In other news, the #1 seed from the West, Air Force, advanced comfortably
to the Final 4. We finish the season with our 4th consecutive TRU
championship, 2nd in the West and expect to finish ranked 9th in the
country. Those players that are returning next year will have the added
experience of playing at this level and hope to take us one step closer
next year.

Thanks for your support.

Craig Coates
Head Coach, Texas A&M Men's RFC

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Thanks for the update and congrats to the team.

As to what I know, players were a little disappointed that most of second side played during the first game, but understood that there was no sense in risking injuries when the second game was bound to be more decisive.

One major injury, a broken leg. He's doing ok, so I've heard.
The rest of the injuries were scrapes, rakes, and bruises, so everyone else should be fine.

I figured that a lot of the 1st 15 players were being rested in the first match due to the comment mentioning that Navy played practically the same squad in both of their games. I can see the logic in resting players in a round-robin/pool play type of tournament for the toughest games, but not sure if it should have been done in a single elimination tournament (as far as getting to the title game).

My how times have changed. In our quest to win the championship, we played two matches on Saturday and two on Sunday to claim the top prize. Our first 15 played all four games. Perhaps todays teams have more quality depth.