Bona Rugby Juggernaut One Win From Chance to Defend State Title

By Tom Missel
Director of Media Relations/Marketing

Clarence Picard is still ticked.

Late in St. Bonaventure’s season-opening men’s rugby game with Hobart, sloppy SBU passing and tackling allowed Hobart to score in the second half.

“Yeah, that still kind of bothers me,” admitted Picard, the Outlaws third-year coach. Not that the score cost St. Bonaventure the game; the Outlaws managed to hold on, 42-5.

What the Hobart score prevented — so far anyway — is a perfectly perfect season. In four games, the defending New York state champs have outscored their opponents, 280-5.

“We’ve gotten much better, much more consistent over the last four weeks,” Picard said.

Talk about an understatement. The Outlaws, 4-0 and ranked 10th in Division II in the latest eRugbynews.com national poll, have beaten their last three opponents by an average score of 79-0, including a 92-0 win over the University of Rochester on Sept. 28.

“We actually scored more tries (touchdowns) against Fredonia, but we couldn’t kick the ball for conversions to save our life that day,” Picard said of the club’s 85-0 win at Fredonia last Saturday.

But this Saturday’s game with visiting Geneseo (1 p.m., McGraw-Jennings Field) doesn’t figure to be so easy. Geneseo (5-0) is also unbeaten and has won its games by an average score of 41-6.

“Not having been pressured at all by some of our competition is a concern for me,” said Picard. “We really concentrate on pushing ourselves so when we get to play Geneseo or Hamilton we’re as ready as we can be.”

The winner will win the Empire West Division II and clinch a berth in the Oct. 25 state title game, most likely against Hamilton. The winner of that game advances to the Northeast Rugby Union tournament in November.

“The evolution of Division II rugby is going to more and more stable coaching, and getting more support around the program, and that’s what St. Bonaventure has done,” Geneseo club president Darren Jurewicz told eRugbynews. “Even though we’ve been winning, we do realize that Bonaventure has beaten teams by much more than we have this season.”

Having been so dominant all season, Picard is trying to direct his club’s focus inward.

“We’re really pushing to just get better and working on our game,” Picard said. “Our goal is to demand more of ourselves than our opponents demand of us.”

St. Bonaventure defeated Colgate to win the 2007 state title and beat Vermont to advance to the Northeast Rugby Union final four before losing to eventual D-II national champion Middlebury.

(In the photo, courtesy of St. Bonaventure University, sophomore Ben Atkinson runs against Niagara in SBU’s season-opening 61-0 win in September.)