Aggies beat Weber State
The Utah State women’s rugby club hosted Weber on Saturday at USU’s HPER Field, defeating the Wildcats 29-10 for Senior Day.
Head coach Brooke Lambert said the club has made progress throughout the season.
“We are showing improvement from the beginning of the season,” Lambert said. “We had the fundamentals down today, so that was a positive for us. We still have things to work on, we still have a young team, but this is probably the best game we have had all season.”
Captain Reannon King said her team finally came together this game.
“It’s a lot better than what we started out. This (game) felt really good,” King said. “We did a lot of things that we have been working on. It started coming together.”
From the beginning, USU’s improvements began to pay off, as better passing and defensive plays kept the game under control, Linder said. The Aggies utilized their speed to gain ground against WSU.
“We have some good, fast players,” Lambert said. “We had some great defensive stands today. The passing was much better, as a whole we played much better as a team today we had all season.”
King also said she saw several positives from the game.
“We were a lot more aggressive with our rucking today, and our back line winged it out,” King said. “It was better support.”
The quickness of the Aggies kept the Wildcats off balance and diving. Though this was their best game, Lambert said the young squad has many things left to work on.
“We are going to focus on end of run, controlling the ball, those kinds of things,” Lambert said. “We have to be able to control the ball when going into tackles.”
King said controlling the ball has been something the club needs to improve on.
“We need to work on our ball control,” King said. “If someone gets tackled, we have a hard time cleaning that up.”
Senior Kylee Griffen, who has been with the team for three and a half years, said the younger players pulled it together.
“Today it went really well, we are all improving. The rookies have improved a lot,” Griffen said. “The support was the biggest positive, whether it was for the forwards, backline or in the rucks.”
Senior day was a success, but losing several seniors’ experience will be difficult, Lambert said.
“They worked hard, we are sad to see them go. They are a big part of the team,” Lambert said. “They have worked their butts off and have worked hard all season – couldn’t ask for a better showing from our seniors today.”
Utah State takes on the Slugs on April 28.
– mega.bodi@aggiemail.usu.edu