All week long Shippensburg University rugby coach Dan Roth stressed to his team the importance of defensive patience.

The Raider’s rugby sevens team hosted its annual tournament on Saturday, April 4, and had to be at their best to compete with conference leaders like Saint Joseph’s University and West Virginia University.

Shippensburg powered its way to a fourth-place finish at the event behind solid passing, communication on defense and hard tackling.

“Staying in support, filling the holes and communicating well on defense,” senior captain Dale Hoover said. “Whenever we do those three things right we will always have a shot to win, and we executed all of these at times today.”

Seven different schools competed at the event: WVU, Temple University, St. Joe’s, Rutgers University, the University of Pittsburg, Millersville University and of course SU. St. Joes took home the cup, Temple grabbed second place and WVU finished third on the day.

Shippensburg started the day with a matchup against Millersville, and found itself down by a try early on. Brady Reisman opened the scoring for Shippensburg shortly after, spinning to elude a defender as he found a hole down the left sideline. On the ensuing kickoff, co-captain Tyler Burke tipped a high bounce to Dan Foust, who sent a pass to Reisman. Reisman took the ball the length of the field to hand SU its first lead on the day. Hoover scored next for Shippensburg, powering up the middle to widen the lead, and Pat Kardish found a hole on the left side to hand Shippensburg its final try and the 26-7 victory.

Shippensburg took on St. Joe’s, the eventual champions, in a hard-fought battle highlighted by a Burke breakaway try. St. Joe’s eventually pulled out the 17-5 victory.

Shippensburg matched up against Rutgers next in a tight matchup that saw outstanding tackling and consistent play from the hosts. Down two tries, Shippensburg opened the scoring on a Reisman breakaway run. Brian Madden tied it up after breaking several tackles on a try down the right sideline, but SU eventually fell 24-19.

“We tackled really well in the Rutgers game,” senior prop Sean Houck said. “We should have beat them but it was a close match. We’ll come out and hit them in the mouth when we see them again in two weeks.”

Shippensburg took on WVU in the final matchup of the day, going head-to-head in the Plate Final. Hoover and Madden both scored in the game, but SU ultimately fell 27-14.

“We weren’t quite as structured as we should have been today,” Roth said. “We left gaps in our defense at times, and there were a couple of times where we had opportunities to score and we couldn’t capitalize. We know we can compete with any team in the league though, and moving forward we know where we need to improve.”

Shippensburg returns to action two weeks from now, when they look to improve on a solid performance at a Rutgers tournament.

Share