Last Saturday was a day to forget for the Northwestern men’s rugby club. Literally, in the case of Daniel McDonell.
The senior played 15 minutes before he suffered a concussion — at least that’s what his teammates tell him. He remembers nothing about the 27-15 loss to DePaul.
“It’s the weirdest feeling ever,” McDonell said. “There’s an eight-hour block that is just missing.”
Still reeling from a 40-0, season-opening loss to Illinois-Chicago, the Wildcats thought the historically weak DePaul club team would be an easier game.
But the Blue Demons jumped to a 20-0 lead in the first half.
The Cats came back to score 15 unanswered points, but injuries to McDonell, freshman Keven Brown, who suffered a broken ankle, and sophomore Steve Kastrayano, who fractured his skull in the Illinois-Chicago match, stalled the comeback.
The Cats had to use high school players to fill the holes on the field, and DePaul ended up on top.
McDonell attributed the club’s 0-2 record to a lack of playing time, caused by NU’s late September start.
“We lacked some of the experience and finesse that comes with practice,” McDonell said. “We start so late that it’s hard to catch up.”
The Cats don’t have much time to mature since the Chicago Area Rugby Football Union Cup takes place this weekend.
CARFU consists of area teams, including Loyola, DePaul, Illinois-Chicago and Northern Illinois, which is hosting this weekend’s tournament.
The top one or two teams move on to the Midwest Tournament.
The Cats have not been able to replicate the success they enjoyed in their back-to-back CARFU Cup championship seasons of 1998 and 1999.
NU is ranked fifth out of the six teams participating this weekend, and its first opponent is DePaul.
LINCOLN LOSES
With the NHL in the midst of a labor dispute, puckheads everywhere are thirsting for hockey.
Luckily for them, the NU men’s hockey club just started its season, notching two victories over Lincolnland Junior College, a team to which the Cats have never lost.
Bucking the stereotype of slow-moving, low-scoring games, the Cats scored 17 goals in their two encounters.
Freshman forward Justin Schorr led the goal scorers with five.
Standing only 5 foot 7 and weighing 140 pounds, some say Schorr is Evanston’s version of Martin St. Louis, the Tampa Bay Lightning forward.
“He’s a phenomenal player,” said junior Reed van Gorden. “He’s a great contribution to our team.”
Schorr leads a highly talented freshman class, the largest class van Gorden can remember.
The Cats head to Iowa City, Iowa, next weekend for a pair of games against the Hawkeyes.
Like NU, Iowa is an entirely student-run club without a head coach.
Van Gorden describes the Hawkeyes as “one of the better teams in the league,” and could be a good early season test for the club.
WILLIE’S ROAD TRIP
Alumni ties run deep for NU, as the men’s and women’s crew clubs found out last weekend.
When the rowers arrived in Rockford, Ill., for the Head of the Rock regatta on Sunday, they found the Rockford chapter of the Northwestern Alumni Club and Willie the Wildcat waiting for them.
The extra cheering section provided the encouragement needed for a good race.
“Most of the race you don’t hear anything but the coxswain,” senior Mary Zell said. “But you could hear the cheers from the shore in the last 20 strokes.”
The men’s openweight four finished fifth out of 29 boats, and the openweight eight finished sixth out of 27.
The women’s lightweight four brought home a fourth-place medal, gliding over the 4500-meter course in about 19 minutes.
While the men’s and women’s clubs have separate coaches and never compete against each other, they share the camaraderie usually found in teammates.
“We spend a lot of time together,” Zell said. “We travel together, we’re really supportive of each other, and I consider us as one team.”
All of the hard work put in by the rowers is leading to the Head of the Charles regatta in Boston on Oct. 22, the largest event the Cats will compete in this fall.
Reach David Morrison at [email protected].
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Concussion, losses slow rugby team
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Men’s hockey squad scores 17 times in two games; alumni, Willie the Wildcat cheer on crew
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