Alumni face off with rugby teams

With temperatures below 50 degrees Saturday, former teammates became opponents on the pitch.

Friends reminisced on the sidelines as the Bullets and Bulls Rugby Club teams played former Truman players in the annual Homecoming Alumni Game matches.

The Bulls decidedly defeated the alumni 58-5, but the returning alumnae beat the Bullets 22-0. Although the matches were physical, the players and alumni said the games were mostly for enjoyment.

Senior Sean Foley, captain of the Bulls, said the team was less strict with its strategy during this game than it is during a regular match.

"[There's] definitely a different feeling to these [alumni] games opposed to a league match," Foley said. "Ninety percent of it's fun."

Graduate student Kyle Stephens said he has played rugby for the past five years and knows a lot of the alumni who played.

"It's good to see the old guys again," he said. "They brought a good team, and we had a fun game. We smoked them pretty good."

Mark Dodson, a 1984 graduate, said he has returned almost every year to play.

"[I come back because] it's Homecoming and [to] meet the guys I haven't seen for a long time," he said. "The alumni haven't done so well in the last few years. We've lost the last two [or three], ... but the team's getting better, it seems like. They keep getting younger, or I keep getting older."

Dodson, 45, plays on a league rugby team in Kansas City and said he contributes the loss to most of the alumni's lack of time on the pitch.

"A lot of [the alumni] are out of shape," he said. "If we had [had] enough players that play throughout the country on club teams, then we could have given them a pretty good game."

Bulls head coach Bill Sexton said 18 alumni came back to play in the game and give donations to the club.

"Part of the effort of the game is fun and camaraderie and bringing people back together that played together, but also it's a pretty straight-out giving event too," he said.

Jerry Ashley, a 1995 graduate, said he came back to play and give something back to the club.

"We're just here to give them a little support, so if they make it to the playoffs and on to nationals, then we'll throw some money their way and show them our support," he said.

Bullets senior player/coach Natalie Gerhart said the Bullets also benefited from the return of 12 or 13 Bullets alumnae.

"It helps a lot all the time to play our alumni because they are the people that taught us originally," she said. "You can always learn from a team that has played together for a long time and definitely from people [who] have been our mentors."

Stephanie Creed, a 2004 graduate, said the game was fun but also competitive.

"We still wanted to crush the new people because ... we have a reputation to uphold," she said. "If [the alumnae] tell stories about how great we were or how mean we are on the field, ... we have to uphold that."

Creed said she sees a difference between this Bullets team and the one she played for last year.

"We had a very tall team in all my years, and they're getting a lot shorter," she said. "Not that that's a bad thing, but there are certain positions where you want more height. So, they have to step up their level of play, which is good."

The Bullets have seven remaining games, including some against regional rivals.

"The games we're probably most excited about [are the University of Missouri-Columbia and Washington University (Mo.)]," Gerhart said. "We're about on the same level, [so it is] good competition."

Gerhart said the team has evolved for upcoming games.

"We've been working a lot on adapting to different styles of play and [creating] a lot of continuity between forwards and backs," she said. "So, we've been working on bringing the team together as one unit, and I think that's starting to show."

The Bulls play Kansas State University on Oct. 30, the last league game. Like the Bulls, Kansas State is a Western Rugby Union Men's Collegiate Div. I team, so Sexton said the outcome of the game will have implications for the playoffs in the spring.

Sexton said that the weekend before the alumni game, the Bulls played two big matches against the University of Arkansas and the University of Tennessee, and the team needed to sharpen its game after losing to Tennessee 50-8.

"So for us [the alumni game] was a chance to really refocus the effort and get ready for K-State," he said. "We're going to practice hard next week, and then have those guys in town."