SHUHEI MATSUO
Sports Assistant
Although football hasn’t been at Pepperdine since 1961, its next of kin, club rugby, has had a strong preseason start.
Having an undefeated pre-season, the Waves captured a season-opening victory against Cal State Lutheran with a score of 29-7 on Saturday.
The team captain, Ryan Adcock, sounded excited for the season.
“We are pretty good this year,” senior Adcock said. “We have five more scheduled games, and if we do well, we have finals.”
Another senior player sounded like he enjoys the sport.
“I love it,” Owen Ranger said. “I think it’s a fun contact sport, and it’s very strategic, too.”
Both Adcock and Ranger said one of the reasons that the team is solid and organized is the significant amount of help from the volunteering coach, Roger Ahola.
“I like Robert a lot,” Ranger said. “He is a funny guy and spends a lot of time with us.”
Adcock, as the team leader, also showed an appreciation toward Ahola.
“We all love Robert,” Adcock said. “He takes a lot of time for us.”
Playing the game for 26 years, Ahola has been coaching for the Waves since 2000, Ahola said. He coaches every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 3:30 p.m. until sunset, when the team practices at Alumni Park.
“This year’s team is a good mixture of freshmen and veterans,” Ahola said. With seniors’ experience and freshmen’s youth, the team intends to win the division and go to the national championship, he said.
The rugby club is a Division-II sport, and the division includes Occidental, Loyola Marymount, Claremont, Westmont and UN Las Vegas, Ahola said.
Although this year’s team has potential to win the division and play move on to the national championship, he is already confident that the team will succeed for the next couple of seasons as well, he said.
“We have strong underclassmen,” he said. “So we are going to have a strong team for the next couple of years.”
The Waves travels and faces Cal Tech this Saturday and will come back and host a home game against Cal State Fullerton on Feb. 4.
01-26-2006
