On Feb. 15, the Gators rugby club concluded their first official regular season game with a 66-19 loss at San Jose State University. 

Rugby club head coach Otto Wacker believes there were positive takeaways from the game despite what the score suggests. 

“This team’s got a lot of heart,” Wacker said. “They didn’t give up. Instead of kicking it out of bounds to end the game, they wanted to tap and go, and we got the last try of the game. That shows a lot of heart, and you can’t coach heart.”

The game started neck and neck for the first 15 minutes with neither club scoring. It wasn’t until the Spartans side rallied off for a consecutive three tries, which propelled them to a 19-0 lead in the middle of the first half. 

Nikolai Hungate is a longtime player and the club president.

”We played some of our best rugby as a club in my time during this game,” said Hungate. “Those first 15 minutes when we’re playing well, we’re setting up our pods deep, we’re getting out tackles, we’re not tired and our best thing [in] this game was our scrums.”

In response, the Gators scored their first try of the game and made the two-point conversion kick, bringing the score to 19-7. 

The Spartans dominated the rest of the half, scored another 26 points and raised the total score to 45-7 at halftime. 

After halftime, the Spartans scored another 21 points from three tries and three conversion attempts. This meant within 30 minutes of playtime, the Spartans went on a 47-0 scoring run.

The Gators scored the game’s last try but failed to score the extra two-point kick resulting in a final score of 66-19, with the Spartans coming out on top.

Club leader Johannes Sadie said the score doesn’t reflect the club’s play.

“I think that if we face them again, it’ll definitely be a closer game,” Sadie said. “I’m just happy to be back on the field. We got a good group of guys. We got a big team. It is going to be an interesting season and it’s going to be fun.”

Veteran player Caleb Davis has been nursing an injury throughout the preseason coming into today. Davis said knows different aspects of the game need to improve for the club to get a win over the Wolfpack.

“Defensively tackling, for sure, and keep our lines flat,” Davis said. “On offense, just being hungry for the ball and keeping a hold of the ball on our runs.”

The rugby club has five games remaining and expects to get back on track against the University of Nevada, Reno Wolfpack on Feb. 22.

Editor’s Note: This story was updated to correct the score from 66-12 to 66-19.