OAKVILLE, Ont. - The Sheridan Bruins men's rugby team (4-0 OCAA) secured the first playoff berth in program history and keep pace to win the Division title, after a 73-7 win over Mohawk.
"Looking at the scoreboard, you'd think we played really well, but we didn't unfortunately," head coach Rick Bria said. "We had a lot of brain farts, and even though we had a lot of points up there, we left a lot of points on the board. This is the danger when you have a runaway game, everyone gets what I call white-line fever. Everybody wants to score and anytime they get anywhere close to the goal line, that's all they're thinking about instead of working together to score a try with their teammates."
Although he was pleased to have clinched a spot in the post-season, Bria said it wasn't exactly something that was, or will be, top of mind.
"Our overall philosophy is one practice at a time, one game at a time," he said. "We're not looking that far forward. The only thing that's in front of us right now is preparing for our second meeting against Mohawk. They're a scrappy team, they came out to play, and they didn't give up. They could have easily folded up the tents, but they didn't, so credit to them."
For a fourth straight game, the Double-Blue set team records for points, tries (11), and margin of victory.
JP Munro scored three tries, followed by Andrew Zandona (two), while Matt DaCosta, Nick Galipo, Jad Hamade, Brandon Roberts, Owen Schimpl, and Alexander Yarzon each scored one.
Hamade kicked six converts, while DaCosta connected on three to round out the scoring.
The Bruins will travel to Mohawk for the road leg of their season series on Oct. 14 (1pm) and Bria has already highlighted some key areas that need to be addressed leading up to the meeting.
"Our offloads need work and we need to work even better together," he said. "We've been telling them since the beginning of the year that we're stronger as one, not as 15. We have a lot of youth on our team, a lot of first year guys, so we're getting them some experience, but it'll come."
Blue notes: Hamade's 17 points on the day set a new team record for single game points, surpassing the 16 Schimpl scored against Seneca last year, while Munro's three tries also set a single-game record.
