Rugby goes 2-2 in weekend tournament, secures second place

The CSB rugby team took second place in a 7s tournament in Rochester this past weekend.

The tournament was originally set to take place in St. Cloud but due to schedule conflicts, it was moved to Rochester. This has been the only tournament they attended this spring.

With a total of four games this weekend, the first game was against Gustavus “A”. St. Ben’s took home that victory with a 24-19 score.

“It was our first time playing in several months…We shook off those pregame jitters and got back into the fun of playing rugby,” Tess Glenzinski, CSB rugby president, said.

CSB was meant to play U of M Duluth next but they couldn’t make the tournament due to COVID cases on the team.

The second game of the day was a 29-0 loss against St. Scholastica. CSB struggled to maintain the ball in offense leading them to this loss. This was the end of their pool play, putting them second in the pool.

The semifinal round was against NDSU. It was a back-and-fourth competitive game but CSB managed to come out on top with a score of 19-15.

The championship game was against St. Scholastica. The Bennies lost 10-5 in overtime.

“I was so proud with the improvement we showed from playing them earlier in the day to then. We got low on our tackles, spread the field on defense, maintained ball possession and kept an upbeat attitude while having fun,” Glenzinski said.

CSB had a few close plays in the tri-zone but never happened to get a tri. However, they did up their game defensively throughout the day.

“Our defense improved during the tournament, and we were talking on the field a lot more than at the beginning,” senior co-captain Hailee Thayer said.

With this being the end of their season, the rugby team is looking forward to doing some more recruiting. They spent a lot of their downtime doing just that. They are hoping to get up to a 15s roster this fall.

“A few of our key members are graduating this spring, so the rest of us have big shoes to fill. We have had many people express interest in joining us this fall so we hope that we can get quite a few new members for a successful fall season. We also will be moving in early before the fall semester starts, so we hope that will encourage people to try rugby. Anyone can try it out and we welcome all abilities,” said Hailey Karnowski, co-captain of the team.