Holy Santos! Tech Ruggers Fall

Right: Fullback Tory Tadano takes evasive action against Santa Fe's Rob Harrison in New Mexico Tech's 41-12 loss to the Santos. Harrison, a New Mexico Tech graduate, was NMT's Player of the Year for 2004-2005.

The Santos of the Santa Fe Rugby Club rode into Socorro Saturday with hardly a man to spare, but attended to business and emerged victorious against a New Mexico Tech team which, if anything, had the opposite challenge. In the end it was the advantage of playing experience and the brilliance of flyhalf wizard Cory Micander which condemned the Pygmies to a 41-12 loss.

The second weekend of the fall season found the Pygmy camp bursting at the seams with a mixed bag of 31 returning and beginning players. When you consider that a rugby side consists of fifteen players, you might understand why my head was spinning in the week leading up to this match as I considered how to select a starting team and substitutions that would allow playing time for the maximum number of our players and still give the lads a reasonable chance to win. Since the Santa Fe match was to be an inter-divisional “friendly” between a men’s and a collegiate side, I was hopeful of being able to sub in more than the six substitutions allowed by strict rugby code.

Santa Fe’s Cory Micander kicked off under a hot sun, and one of our new players promptly dropped the ball, giving the Santos a scrum restart inside our territory. They wasted no time pressing their case either; soon afterward Micander took a pass from Chris Madison to dot down for the first of three Santa Fe tries which produced a 19-0 lead after just 21 minutes.

Standing on the touchline, it was disappointing to see my former club once again pulling away from us. I was a Santo from 1976 until 1995, and an unrealized goal remains beating Santa Fe.

Our guys were not playing that badly, though. With four lightly-seasoned players out of eight in the forward positions, that unit was able to claim their share of loose balls following tackles, and I was truly surprised to see them hold their own in the set scrums against the heavier Santos. Most pleasing, all the fellows were showing no fear on either the giving or receiving end of tackles. There is no substitute for courage in our game.

Defensively our soft spot seemed to be in the midfield, that area between the forwards and the far wing. Micander was having a ball feeding teammates running through that zone, and it eventually cost us four of Santa Fe’s six tries. Santa Fe’s other points came on a blazing sideline run from Uganda native Sunny Kirunda, a short bullocking run by former Pygmy Richard Soto, and a penalty kick by Micander.

At 26 minutes, Steve Huelskamp, who started his rugby career last spring, was rewarded for his storming presence with his first-ever try after scrumhalf Paul Quintana got close from a lineout (inbounds throw). Co-captain Pat Simons booted the conversion to complete Huelskamp’s work, and we went to halftime trailing 19-7.

I thought we might loan Santa Fe a player or two, since they’d arrived with only one extra, but there was no self-pity in them. We substituted extravagantly anyway and new hope sprang up within me. Maybe our kids would just wear the Santos down on such a blistering day.

Alas, this was not to be either, so we went to Plan C, which was losing the match. Four minutes in scrumhalf Seth Daly scored our only second-half points from a scrum deep in the Santa Fe side, but it was all Santos the rest of the way.

The guys were upbeat after the last whistle, as they should be so early in the season. Man of the Match Steve Huelskamp was presented with the Irish Cup to inscribe with his initials, and the captains Patrick (Garcia and Simons) were generous with their praise for the youngsters. Now that the rookies seem to be taking wing, we’ll be concentrating more on physical fitness this week, as well as sharpening an offensive attack which was decidedly anemic against Santa Fe. We’ll need to make every practice minute count if we expect to beat back the always-tough Chiles of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces on Saturday, Sept. 16.

-NMT-