Vassar College Men
Bronx, NY
Sunday September 17th, 2017
Men Fall to Maritime
Watching the tape of this game is going to hurt. The Vassar Men traveled down to the Bronx and took on SUNY-Maritime College on a boiling hot afternoon. Vassar was in complete control for large portions of this match but failed to turn territory and possession into points. In the end they even had a kick to win the match but it drifted wide.
Sunday September 17, 2017
Vassar College Men 19 v 20 SUNY-Maritime College Men
Tries: George Sheppard (1), Gary Garcia (1) & Stephen Kpundeh (1).
Cons: Stephen Kpundeh (2).
Last Fall Vassar prevailed over Maritime by a single point at Vassar and this year the Bronx school flipped the coin. Maritime won 20-19 as they broke tackles to run in a couple of long distant tries.
Vassar will be bitterly disappointed at having lost this match given that they held the ball for long periods and led 14-0 after about 25 minutes. The script was simple in that they had to keep possession and pin their opponent back with penalty kicks to gain territory.
There was much to be pleased about in the first half save for the try the Brewers conceded. From a scrum inside the Maritime 22 the Number 8 picked up and went the length of the field to score! Not only did this bring the home side right back into the match it also showed them that if they just ran hard they could cause problems for the visitors.
Prior to that George Sheppard had tapped alertly when a penalty kick was awarded and he plunged over. Then Gary Garcia ran off the back of a scrum to make it 14-0 after Stephen Kpundeh had added the conversion.
But Vassar flagged in the heat as the half drew to a close.
The second 40 minutes was a litany of errors as Vassar players gave away penalties and went completely off script. Joe Griffen who had played extremely well for some reason offloaded after a significant break and the ball was intercepted; Nick Olkovsky drove through a ruck at the side for no apparent reason other than wanting to impersonate a Discovery Channel ram; Stephen Kpundeh attempted to catch a kick-off that was headed out the back of the in-goal and south to Manhattan and then touched it down giving  the opposition a 5 meter scrum; the Vassar lineout did not function on account of the tunnel being closed up so kicks to touch turned out to be turnovers; and when Vassar stole scrum ball the 8,9,10 combination decided to pass the ball laterally insted of just attacking.
The game began to slip away and that was despite Maritime giving away penalties.
The Brewers need to put in some hard work these next few weeks to get the season back on track. They need to stay within their systems and defense needs to be much better.
Team: 15 Nate Cuson 14 Stephen Kpundeh 13 Joe Griffen 12 Joe Simon 11
Charlie Hooghkirk 10 Nick Olkovsky 9 Gary Garcia 1 Michael Cadenas 2 Louis Brown 3 Dale Lord 4 George Sheppard 5 Logan Ragsdale 6 Josh Espada 7 Kaden Wood 8 Rob Eder. Subs: Kushin Mukherjee for Logan Ragsdale, Theodore Lewis-Lawrence for Nate Cuson, Ryan Chan for Joe Griffen.
Overall record: 1-1-0
Next: Friday September 22, 2017 Monroe College, kick-off 3:00 pm
