The men’s rugby team suffered its first season loss 24 to 23 on Saturday against Fullerton their most formidable season rival bringing their season record to 5-1 and their yearly record to 13-1-1. Despite their first loss the team’s national ranking improved from No. 25 to No. 23.
“We came out pretty flat junior Nathaniel Rawicki said about the game. After finding some momentum in the first half the team, came out pretty strong in the second half.”
With one minute left in the match a questionable call put the Waves in a tough situation. Fullerton’s assistant coach doubling as the line judge said one of the Pepperdine players touched the ball as it went out in the back field resulting in a scrum on Pepperdine’s 5-meter line. Although the Waves won the scrum but got a penalty called resulting in a penalty kick from the 10-meter line.
Pepperdine has faced Fullerton four times in the past year’s play with a 3-1 record overall. All four games have been decided by one point.
“This was a big wake-up call Rawicki said. This shows that we can’t play flat against anyone and hope to get away with it.”
The Waves next face UCSD this Saturday at 1 p.m. in San Diego before the national tournament begins next weekend.
“We beat them pretty handidly earlier in the year Rawicki said. UCSD is near the bottom of the SoCal conference. We should beath them.”
If the Waves win against UCSD then they will be awarded the No. 1 seed heading into the national tournament. The first seed will face Rice University a “good team” ranked No. 9 in the nation on rugbymag.com.
“If by some chance we don’t win Rawicki explained, we’ll have to play Wisconsin. They’re ranked No. 1 in the nation.”
Southern California is considered one of the best conferences in the nation Rawicki explained. Southern California’s Claremont College won the national championship last year and moved up to division one ranking showing the prowess of the region.
“If we win the first two games [in the tournament] we go to Indianapolis for the last two rounds of nationals, Rawicki said.
For continual updates on the team’s status in the coming weeks, look on pepperdine-graphic.com/sports.