Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

Texas A&M Rugby would like to wish all our family, fans, supporters, and alumni a very happy holiday season and Merry Christmas!  We are extremely thankful for all of your support throughout the year!  We invite everyone to come out and see us during 15s season!  Have a safe, warm, and joyful season - see you after the holidays!

Merry Christmas from the Aggies!

Final Thoughts on National Championships

Aggie National Championship Squad

The 7s National Championships have come and gone for another year - what an experience!  Texas A&M did another fantastic job hosting this event and some special thanks go out to some individuals.  Director of Rugby Craig Coates did his usual amazing work with logistics and providing direction to the event.  He served as our liaison with USA Rugby and did a masterful job getting everything ready!  We could not do these types of events without Craig.  A special thanks goes out to the Sports Rec and Keith Joseph along with his team.  Keith was awesome in getting the wheels of A&M running smoothly and making this a special event.  Again, an event of this caliber would not have happened without Keith and we appreciate him more than he knows.  Finally, I cannot express how proud we are of all the work the A&M players put in over a long period of time.  Chris Frazier is the epitome of what a president should be and serves with humor, selflessness, and tireless effort - well done Chris.  All of our officers have been outstanding.  Garrett Dishman is the man!  He organized and managed all the volunteers over the course of the event and did it with Aggie hospitality and a smile on his face (which is quite a feat when dealing with college rugby players and a large crowd).  Well done to everyone - we can be proud of the event, the hospitality we provided, and how we represented Texas A&M University and Aggie Rugby!

Lets not forget that the Aggies played in the tournament as well - finishing 8th!  We are thrilled about the top ten finish, but at the same time disappointed because we felt we were a fraction away from finishing much higher.  We played an extremely tough St. Mary's team right down to the wire, and had we taken advantage of our opportunities, we could have pushed through with a win.  This could have been huge as it would have given us someone other than Life in the Cup Quarterfinals.  We played Life extremely tough throughout the first half and had we been awarded Theodore's score, we would have been 10-5 or 10-7 at the half.  This would have been a huge difference and given us some momentum.  The Navy match was right down to the wire and had we not played such a poor first half, we could have beat Navy.  I think the emotions and physical nature of the St. Mary's and Life matches took too much out of us.  Plenty of analysis to build on for next year, but in the end it was an amazing 7s season.  Our guys played fantastic from the beginning to the end.  Like life, rugby is a journey and we learned a lot about ourselves - what we are capable of, where our weaknesses lie, how much work is required to be successful, and how important the mental and team aspects are.  Throughout the season I told the team that there is no other group of people I would rather take this voyage with than these guys.  I am extremely proud to have been along for the journey and cannot in words express my gratitude and love for my Aggie players - well done men! 

Thank you Jeremy!!

Coach Jeremy Stewart will be stepping away from rugby this spring (we hope not for long!) and we thought this would be a good time to say thank you for all his tremendous effort and leadership over the last three years at Texas A&M.  The team has experienced a great deal of success while Coach Stewart has been at A&M, and his departure will be a blow to all of us who work with him.  We are all extremely fortunate to have known Jeremy and be associated with him.  He is a wonderful coach, but more importantly an amazing person! 

 

Coach Stewart with Coach Mills at the National Championships

 Jeremy is a rare commodity in the rugby coaching community..the type of guy everyone likes.  His kindness, quick smile, empathy, and great sense of humor make a major impact on all those he meets and works with.  Jeremy will be deeply missed this spring and our deepest hope is that he will return to his "other" family soon!  Best of luck Jeremy - we can't imagine what it will be like without you!

 

Aggies Recieve Best Team of the Series Award

Texas A&M Rugby received the Best Team of the ARC 7s Series Award at the recent Allied Rugby Conference Award Ceremony.  The Aggies had a combined (Varsity and JV) record of 23-2 and neither of the losses came against conference competition.  They finished with a 166 series points with runner-up Texas Tech (16-8 overall) getting 120 points.  University of Oklahoma finished third with 116 points.

 

Coach Mills receiving the award from ARC Director Johnny Smith

This is a fantastic honor for the Aggies and they were very proud to accept the trophy.  "We feel extremely honored to recieve the first ever Best of Series Award," said team president Chris Frazier, "This is a great reward for all the hard-work and dedication, we have put in!"  The team hopes to continue its 7s success in 15s this spring.

Leading Aggie Scorers - National Championships

Leading Scorer Conor Mills and Lukas Jacobson on the attack

Conor Mills led the Aggies in scoring at the National Championships with 26 points.  Brian Guillen added 15 - Lukas Jacobson, Andres Diaz, and Chris Frazier all had 10.  The bench managed to score four tries in this tournament with Danny Amsler, John Deao, Tyler Gessner, and Ray Hawkins all getting scores.  The Aggies scored 90 total points on the weekend.

Scorer		Tries	Conv.	Assists	Total
Conor Mills		2	8	4	26
Brian Guillen		3	0	0	15
Andres Diaz		2	0	1	10
Chris Frazier		2	0	1	10
Lukas Jacobson		2	0	1	10
Danny Amsler		1	0	0	5
John Deao		1	0	0	5
Aaron Durke		1	0	1	5
Tyler Gessner		1	0	0	5
Raymond Hawkins		1	0	0	5

Mills Named ARC 7s MVP

Conor Mills was named the 2012 Allied Rugby Conference 7s MVP on Saturday night at the ARC Awards Ceremony held in College Station.  Mills was one of four finalists for the award, which included teammate Lukas Jacobson (Wes Mitchell, Texas Tech, and Dakota Wilkinson, Oklahoma were the other two).  ARC official Johnny Smith said of the four candidates, "They were clearly the dominant players of the series and each not only performed well, but did what all great players do - made everyone around them better.  They were all leaders." 

 

2012 ARC 7s MVP Conor Mills

"We are so excited for Conor.  He means so much to this team and to see him rewarded for his hard work and selfless play is brilliant!" said coach Mills.  "He leads by example, works hard every second of every match, and refuses to lose - he is also a pretty fantastic rugby player." Mills led the Aggie Sevens team in scoring this year with 201 points and was also named to the All-SEC and All-ARC 7s squads.  Congratulations on an amazing season!

Aggies Named All-Conference 7s Selections

Texas A&M was well-represented on Saturday night when the Allied Rugby Conference announced its 2012 7s All-Conference selections.  The Aggies placed  five players on the 14 man squad, more than any team in the conference.  Conor Mills was one of two unanimous selections (Wes Mitchell of Texas Tech was the other).  He was joined on the squad by senior Lukas Jacobson, senior Andres Diaz, senior Chris Frazier, and freshman Matthew Theodore. 

 

The conference also named an All-Conference team from the junior varsity division.  There were seven Aggies named to the team, led by seniors Chris Semler and Rob Larsen.  They were joined on the squad by Tyler Lunsford, Caleb Cornetius, Matt Krath, Josh Fojtik, and Dylan Starks.

 

Congratulations to all of our players for earning this high honor, we are extremely proud of you and the way you have represented the finest traditions of Aggie Rugby - Gig 'Em!

National Championships

The Aggies had a great showing at the 2012 Collegiate 7s National Championships this weekend, finishing 8th!  This is the highest finish yet for the Aggies in 7s competition.  The field for the tournament was amazing, with some (if not the best) collegiate 7s ever played in the States.  Long-time rival Arkansas State managed to defeat Life University for the championship, putting an exclamation point on a very successful tournament for host Texas A&M.

 

2012 Texas A&M National Championship squad

The Aggies played their first match Friday morning against Bowling Green and came out with a decisive 31-7 victory.  Bowling Green had tremendous size and a number of highly skilled players, so it was great to start the weekend off with a big win.  TAMU followed-up with a 38-0 victory over Western Washington, another great effort against a well-coached and physically big squad.  The other pool member St. Mary's had two wins going into the last match also, making it the pool championship game.  This match was a brutal affair, with some tremendous hits occurring all over the field.  The Aggies scored first after Conor Mills made a long break before off-loading to the hard-charging Andres Diaz for the try.  St. Mary's managed to tie the game 5-5 and then pushed over another right before the half to take a 10-5 lead.  The rest of the match was a defensive struggle, and despite moving the ball deep into Gael territory, the Aggies were not able to break their defense.  St. Mary's managed to pick up a cheap try on the last play of the game for a 17-5 win.  Third-ranked St. Mary's was a fierce defensive team and well-deserving of the win, but A&M had its chances and were unable to capitalize, leaving the team very disappointed.  Despite the loss to St. Mary's, A&M was one of two teams to advance to the cup quarterfinals based on point-differential.  Their quarterfinal opponent was top-ranked Life University. 

 

The Aggies gave Life everything they could handle in the 1st half, but were down 10-0 as the stanza ended.  The score could have easily stood at 10-7, after Matt Theodore made a beautiful run, scoring what appeared to be a try close to the posts.  Unfortunately, a Texas in-goal AR ruled that the ball was held up and the try was disallowed.  Film evidence from the match clearly shows the AR out of position to make the call, and incontrovertible evidence that the try was scored - the hands of fate are sometimes cruel...  Life proved why they are so highly-regarded by scoring three more tries in the 2nd half for a 32-0 win.  This result pushed the Aggies into the plate competition and a match against Navy.  The United States Naval Academy was an extremely fit, well-disciplined, and highly motivated competitor and jumped out to a quick 21-0 lead at halftime.  It appeared the Aggies were trying to find their equilibrium after the Life loss and played poor defense in the first half.  The second half was a different story, with the Aggies scoring three unanswered tries, but coming up short 21-17.  The Ags demonstrated a huge amount of character in the second half and had they played the same way in the first...one can only wonder at the end result.  The final match of the tournament (7th-8th place) was against perennial powerhouse Central Washington.  CW had more left in the tank than the Aggies and cruised to a 26-5 win.  The Aggies played tenacious defense in the first half, but ran out of juice, giving up two tries in the second half.  The highlight of the match was reserve (freshman) Danny Amsler's 40m break for a try down the sideline.

 

Despite our disappointment at falling in a couple of extremely tight matches, the Aggies are proud of their 8th place finish.  We were challenged by every team in the tournament and the standard of play was the very highest.  It is a fantastic accomplishment to know that you went up against the best the country can offer and finish in the top ten!   Special thanks go out to all of our supporters - we love you guys!!