Lake Larsen | Sports Editor

Clouds covered the sky and rain began to fall as Western Men’s Rugby took the field to battle against the Central Oregon Community College Bobcats. A week prior, Western Rugby took on Oregon State University and pulled off an upset beating them 31-29. Hoping to continue their season in the winning column, the Wolves matched up against the Bobcats.

The first 20 minutes saw offensive domination by the Wolves with the ball only crossing back over midfield once. However, despite the offensive pressure, Western was only able to score one try, missing the conversion.

Shortly after their try the Wolves’ defense fell back on their heels. The Bobcats scored and were able to complete their conversion to take a 7-5 lead with close to 15 minutes left on the clock in the half. After a few defensive stops by Western, the Bobcats once against found themselves on the board with another try. After missing the conversion the Wolves were down 12-5 going into the half.

Western needed to make some adjustments at halftime in order to stall the offensive momentum of the Bobcats.

“We made some substitutions because some guys were a little fatigued,” said senior criminal justice major Chris Davis. “But overall it was more so just getting back to the basics… settling back down and getting back to what we do well: running our offense.”

Shortly after the half Western started to battle back, bringing the score to 10-12. However both defenses were relentless as no points were scored either way for the majority of the second half.

As the clock came down to just a few minutes left, the Wolves pulled ahead 15-12. Unfortunately for Western, this lead was short lived as the Bobcats scored a try and conversion to retake the lead. With just a few minutes on the clock Western was unable to recover the lead, finishing the game 15-19 with the Bobcats on top.

Despite the loss, Western still kept their heads high.

“It was encouraging because this team was the conference champion last year and we matched up pretty well,” said Davis. “I think that going forward for the rest of the season, only a two point loss to a really good team like this can be pretty encouraging”

Contact the author at howlsports@wou.edu

Photo courtesy of Ashlynn Norton