The Oswego State men’s club rugby team, the Wizards, is heading to Div. II nationals after winning the state championship for the third time in four years.
On Saturday, the Wizards beat the SUNY Geneseo Warthogs 17-12, with much of their motivation coming from the loss suffered in last year’s championship game. Kevin Morgan, one of four captains on the team, said this year was just a buildup to playing the Warthogs again.
“We knew we were going to face them in the championship,” Morgan said. It was either us or them the whole entire year, and it came down to it, and I think we just had more of a will to win. We just wanted to beat them more than they wanted to beat us.”
The win meant not only would they have another chance to prove themselves at nationals, but also they had finished their season undefeated at 8-0.
Coach Reid Adler said he had always expected they would bring the trophy home again.
“It’s kind of like an expectation we all set for ourselves and made sure we achieved it,” Adler said. “We worked ridiculously hard all season from recruiting new players to working on our fitness, just like preparing ourselves. I mean, all the hard work, we’re not surprised. So, I guess it’s just for the next coming weeks that are what we’re most anticipating.”
This year, Adler said the team decided to not only focus on practice, but also to analyze their game plays and those of their opponents. He said they would make changes based on what they saw the other teams doing. Adler, who previously played on the team before becoming a coach, said it can be difficult standing on the sideline sometimes.
“It’s hard not to have control of the game,” Adler said. “You know watching from the sidelines, but I guess a lot of that really comes into preparation for games and stuff as opposed to preforming,” Adler said.
For Garrett MacKenzie, who was on the team back in 2015 when they won the championship for two consecutive years, the experience winning now was “electrifying.” He said they only made a small change in how they played so they could win the game.
“We’re such a strong team offensively that most teams couldn’t score as many points as we did,” MacKenzie said. “We didn’t focus on defense until we matched Geneseo, who had roughly the same amount of skill we did. So, we put more of an emphasis on playing solid defensively and supporting our own players to maintain the ball, and it all payed off.”
On and off the field, the team is known for always being around each other, Adler said. He noted this as the reason the team plays so well together. The relationship they have built over the past season is unique, he added.
Morgan, a senior, said it is the friends he has made playing rugby that he will miss most when he graduates. The one thing Morgan said he learned by playing on the team was to always believe in himself.
“The weakest guy can make the hardest hit,” Morgan said. “It doesn’t matter. As long as your mindset is there, you’re the toughest guy on the field.”
The last two times the Wizards were at nationals, they lost in their first rounds, once to Vermont in 2014 and then to the University of Rhode Island in 2015. Adler said the home field advantage will come in handy as they look to move past Southern Connecticut State University this Saturday at 1 p.m. at the Hidden Fields.
Photo provided by: Macdonell Orelus
