7 March 2009 vs. Santa Rosa

REFEREE'S REPORT: Arroyo Grande 7 – SANTA ROSA 40 Referee: Roberto Santiago Wow! What a beautiful setting for rugby, and lots of it. There were under-12 and under-14 games going when I arrived at Arroyo's home pitch with U19, college, and my D2 game to follow. If you ever have a chance to head down that way I recommend going. The sky was clear and the breeze was cool at kickoff. Early on it looked like we would end up at all zeros in the first half as Arroyo's defense held strong playing a majority of the first 25 minutes inside their 22. It was inspiring watching the boys in blue turn back wave after wave of the crimson attackers. In the end the odds took over when Santa Rosa's Alex Coursey found a hole near the 5 meter line and burst through for a try. Ten minutes later Rosa scored twice more thanks to the nimble running of Dan Powers and Jon Muchoho. Halftime saw the home team down 0-18 despite their very strong defensive efforts. In the second half Rosa's #10 Muchoho opened the scoring with a nifty run for a converted try at 50:46. Santa Rosa scored another converted try at 69:00 before Arroyo was able to mount a fluid attack and put one over 74:00. The try was scored on a hardnosed and shifty run by AG scrumhalf Ben Jauregui. These were to be the only points for the home side this day. Rosa added one more converted try for the final margin of victory. Both teams played hard and played well. In the end Santa Rosa was able to put together a more coordinated attack. Thanks to both teams for an enjoyable game and to Arroyo Grande for their hospitality.

28 February 2009 vs. Diablo

Diablo came into this match expecting to coast to victory, with many of their players openly talking about scoring "at least 10 tries." However, hard-hitting, much-improved ball retention in the open field, and a skillful offensive exposition by AG's backline soon disabused the Gaels of their expectations. Diablo's massive inside center pushed over the opening try from a few meters out, and it was converted to make the score 7-0 Diablo. The same Gael player scored again ten minutes later when he picked up a possible knock-on and ran the try in from 50 meters out. The 14-0 score was cut to 14-7 when replacement fullback Mike Draper executed a nifty kick-and-chase for a try right before the half, and it was converted by scrumhalf Joshua Pendergrass. Diablo found itself severly challenged 10 minutes into the secondhalf when AG rookie inside center Jude Deras scooped up a loose ball and rumbled in from 40 meters out to close the gap to 14-12. Diablo stretched the lead to 35-12, as AG failed to push the ball in during numerous forays into Diablo territory. However, a long run by flyhalf Tom Hayes and a follow-up try by Pendergrass from one meter out closed the gap to 35-17 with a few minutes left. Diablo scored one late, meaningless try to make the final tally 40-17, a score that did not really indicate how close this match was.

21 February 2009 at Golden Gate

On an overcast day at Treasure Island, the visiting Arroyo Grande Rugby Football Club quickly shocked San Francisco-Golden Gate when lock Jack Murphy scooped up an errant ball, created by a crushing Justin Biely tackle, and raced roughly 50 meters in for our first try of the year. Flyhalf Joshua Pendergrass made the conversion, and AGRFC found itself up 7-0 one minute into the match. The first half was dominated by AGRFC, but a missed penalty kick and the frequent failure to retain ball in loose play helped SFGG take a 11-7 halftime lead. The first 20 minutes of the second half went much the same way, before the experience and superior depth of the home side told in an eventual 36-7 SFGG victory.

31 January 2009 vs. Baracus
	Though the young AGRFC played much-improved defense and outplayed Baracus in the 2nd Half, a stagnant first half performance and poor offenseive continuity doomed the home team, and Baracus eked out a 19-3 victory.

30 March 2008 vs. Fresno
	We avenged our two earlier losses at Fresno by clobbering the visitors 63-5. Multiple tries by half-time replacement (and new father) Tom Hayes stretched out an already sizeable halftime lead.

9 March 2008 at Fresno

We dominated the first 25 minutes of this match, but failed to put any points on the board, despite spending plenty of time within Fresno's 22. Though Fresno looked shell-shocked by our intensity early-on, they quickly rebounded and rattled off three straight tries to go up 21-0 by the end of the half. Red Vasquez converted a penalty try to cut the deficit to 18 by halftime. After a stern talking-to by coach Rob Hooper, AGRFC played much better in the second half, with ailing center Tom Fleming pushing over two tries. It was not enough, however, as Fresno kept pace, ultimately winning 40-17 in a disappointing effort by Arroyo Grande.

2 March 2008 vs. Golden Gate

After two straight games where we played great in the first half, only to fall apart in the second, it was more than gratifying to secure a victory at home against Golden Gate on March 2nd. AGRFC reversed its trend of playing well over the first 30 minutes, though, and Golden Gate jumped out to a 26-5 lead on the strength of three tries off of penalty taps. Charged by a firey speech from James Gentry, however, the home squad responded with two tries toward the end of the half and went into the break only down 26-19. At halftime, coach Rob Hooper challenged the club to play to its ability and score 30 points in the second half. AGRFC almost met Rob's goal, outscoring our visitors from San Francisco 25-5 to take the 44-31 decision. Tom Fleming scored three tries on the day, Pete Stanley scored two, and Red Vasquez and Pete Madonna each chipped in a single try. Red's boot continued to impress, as he converted a penalty try and three conversions for a personal-best 14 points on the day. Kudos to George Manos, who received the Man of the Match award from previous winner Arly Moretti for his strong forward play throughout the game.

17 November 2007 vs. Cal Poly

Arroyo Grande defeated Cal Poly's 3rd team on Saturday, November 17th at the Don and Oliver Talley Memorial Fields by a score of 24-5. Mike Draper scored two tries, and our forward pack controlled most of the match by sticking to our gameplan and putting constant pressure on the CP defense. Cal Poly proved a willing opponent, never tiring out or giving up, and the match was a battle the entire way. We had upwards of 25 players out, and everyone got significant playing time with no drop-off in production when subs came in. A good victory to set the tone for our December 8th showdown against SLO!

Fresno Tournament

Despite going 1-2, the Fresno Tournament was a huge success for AGRFC...especially considering the fact that we only had 17 or 18 guys (with no true front-row players) and five first-time players. We barely lost a hard-fought game against Kern County in the first match, three tries to one. Kern scored twice quickly, once on a well-executed rolling maul, and again on a baffling referee mistake. Benny pushed over a try for the good guys, but it wasn't quite enough. We beat Modesto in the second game, with Red kicking the game-winning penalty goal with no time left for the 10-7 win. This turned out to be the only loss of the day for Modesto, who later beat Kern for the championship. We fought gamely vs. Fresno in the third game, and held them almost even for the first half. Two games in two hours eventually took their toll, though, and the hosts pulled away late. All-in-all, it was a great day. Everyone left his guts on the field, and we earned plenty of respect, despite being outweighed, out-experienced, and under-manned, and despite having several of our boys go down with injuries and cramps. The rookies played great: Blake delievered many crushing hits and looked like a natural; Arly manned up and played all of all three games at hooker; Young Dave looked great on the wing; Red showed off his booming foot and made one very, very tough conversion; and Nick ran over and through defenses all day. Thanks go to Anthony Bozzano, Arly, and Old Dave for sticking it out in the front row all three games--by the 2nd game, we were more than holding our own in the scrums. We conpeted well all day, even though all of our opponents had played multiple games, while this was our first action of the year.

Tri-Tip 7s

In our closest tournament to home, the AGRFC put up a very strong showing at the Tri-Tip 7s tournament on September 8th in San Luis Obispo. The "A" side swept through pool play, defeating opponents Cal Lutheran, the LA Rebellion, and the Santa Barbara Gruions. Our Cup Semi-final loss was no shame, as strong Division I side Belmont Shore brought their A game, ending the "A" team's day at a very respectable 3-1. The "B" side started out shaky with a loss to Eagle Rock that should have been a win, a close victory over AIDS "B", and a thrashing at the hands of eventual tournament winner Santa Monica. However, the "B" team impressively rallied to gain two victories in the Shield playoffs over the Gurkhas and the LA Rebellion, thereby securing the Shield trophy. Overall, we went 6-3 on the day and 12-6 over the summer.

Grunion 7s

The AGRFC 7s squad looked to repeat its strong July performance at the Grunion 7s tournament in Santa Barbara on August 18th. Our first game was against the Valley Dogs, who we had previously narrowly defeated at the Rockfest 7s. This match was much more one-sided, as tries by Randy and Chris, and two by Tom Hayes, ensured a relatively easy 26-5 victory. The second game pitted us against our nemesis the Santa Barbara Grunions, who a month earlier foiled our attempts to win the Rockfest tourney. The first quarter of this match was very even, with both sides playing tough defense. However, a few costly mistakes gave the momentum to the Grunions, who eventually won 31-0 in a game that was closer than the lopsided score indicates. The final match of pool play was against perennial crowd favorites Godzilla Rugby of South Bay. The Godzillas play the game the way it was meant to be played, with heart, style, and joy. Nevertheless, AGRFC coasted to a victory, giving us a place in the quarter-finals against undefeated Santa Monica. Though we beat the same team in L.A., several handling errors and poor decisions, as well as solid play from Santa Monica, meant that our day ended in a 19-10 defeat, though we narrowly missed scoring two tries late that would have given us the victory and sent us to the semi-finals. Once again, though, we had an excellent day on the pitch, had lots of fun, and avoided any major injuries. Thanks not only to our supporters who came to encourage us, but also to Herb and Matt from Fresno, who made the trip over to lend a hand on the field.

Rockfest 7s

The AGRFC 7s squad travelled down to hot and smoggy Encino on July 14th for the Rockfest 7s tournament with high expectations. True, unlike our prospective opponents, we had not played in a tournament yet this summer and were introducing several rookies to the glorious game of rugby. Nevertheless, spirits were high after several excellent training sessions under the direction of uber-coach Rob Hooper, and the squad felt well-prepared for whatever would come our way. Our first match against a veteran Valley Dogs team was a struggle, mainly due to first-game jitters, as evidenced by a number of mental and ball-handling errors. Valley took advantage of these and made a strong bid late to take the game from us after we had led most of the way. However, the character of our team showed and we held them off for the 14-12 win. It was great to get that first win under our belts, but it was clear we had to play better to go anywhere in this tourney. And play better we did. The nerves of the Valley game were nowhere to be seen in the second match against the Secret 7s squad. The AGRFC jumped out to a commanding 19-5 lead and kept the pressure on before a late try by our opponents made the score a more respectable (from their point of view) 19-10. Two games down and two wins. We improved even more in the third game against Back Bay, and our 22-10 victory put us into the semi-finals against Santa Monica, a Division I team full of guys from foreign countries with funny accents who have been playing rugby since they were five and looked like a bunch of world-beaters. It looked like we would have our work cut out for us, and a quick score by Santa Monica seemed an ill omen. However, AGRFC quickly responded in kind, then added try after try, leading to some in-house bickering among the gents from Santa Monica. We controlled the ball by stealing it in their scrums and making good, short passes to support that led to some nice breakaway runs. Perhaps the highlight of these was Peter Madonna's 40-meter try right through three different Santa Monica tacklers. In the re-telling of the story through the years, his run will no doubt lengthen to 80 meters and will be through eight defenders. In any event, this 26-5 thrashing put us into the finals. We had now surpassed any expectations we had for the day, finding ourselves in the championship match against the Santa Barbara Grunions. Though we fully felt like we could take the tournament, the Grunions proved to be too strong in the finals, scoring a lot of tries to our very few. Many players distinguished themselves on the day: Tom Hayes scored about a half-dozen tries before succumbing to an injury in the championship; Mark and Peter Madonna inserted themselves into our opponents' nightmares by rumbling through defenses all day; and young Marcus made perhaps the play of the day by making two try-saving tackles on the same sequence, then scoring a try of his own. Despite the setback in the last game, we went 4-1, beating some quality teams in the process. Not bad at all for our first tournament!

2006-07 Recap

The Summer of 2006 saw several Arroyo Grande players compete with the Central Coast select 7s team at the Santa Barbara Grunions 7s tournament in August. The Central Coast team, managed by our own Andy Doukas, made a strong showing. The "A" side handily defeated the Grunions after narrowly losing to perennial 7s powerhouses Oxy Olde Boys and Las Vegas. The "B" side placed third in its division by going 3-2 on the day. Arroyo Grande rugger Tom Hayes was particularly strong, running in several tries from his wing position. The 2007 regular season started off on a promising note, as Arroyo Grande fought a strong Baracus club to the wire in our first match before finally succumbing. Injuries and a general lack of experience soon took their toll, however, and AG fell on hard times, though we were in most of our games at the half, only to be worn down by superior numbers later in games. The end of the season saw a drastic turnaround in our fortunes, as AG almost upset Fresno on the road, then proceeded to beat playoff-bound Santa Rosa in our final home game in front of a large crowd of supporters. With very little time left on the clock, Ozzie the Kiwi scored the game-winning try after a beautiful break by Tom Hayes. The Santa Rosa game showed what we can do when we get players healthy and gain experience playing together...it was all-in-all a very positive note heading into next year!