The Thomas More University men’s rugby team has won the inaugural D-II National Collegiate Rugby Championship by defeating Adrian College of Michigan, 21-17, in the title game.
The game in Houston was a tight match throughout – unlike all of TMU’s victories up to the final, where the team scored at least 40 points more than their competitors.
In the semi-final against Northern Iowa University on Friday, the Saints dominated, 73-20. Two weeks ago at the Regional Finals in St. Louis, TMU won by a score of 59 to 0 over the University of Minnesota-Duluth.
“We’ve been working for this all year,” said TMU Head Coach John Fox. “The boys worked really hard and it paid off.”
Fox recruited an international group of players, including five students from Argentina who have all been playing rugby since they were four or five years old. One of them, Freshman Bautista St. Bonnet, was named MVP of the championship game while his countryman and teammate Matias Carumuti won the MVP during the regional tournament.
The team also features a player from Kenya and another from Panama, along with some of the best high school rugby players from across Ohio.
“We’ve been talking about building a legacy all season,” said Captain Hudson Montgomery, a senior from Lakota East. “This is a great first step.”
Thomas More University