PUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y. - The SUNY-Maritime College Privateers came ready to play in this match up of the top two teams in the division. On what was a beautiful fall afternoon under sunny skies with a good crowd the visitors impressed running in a host of tries, 12 in all, and they humbled the Vassar College Brewers.
Vassar College Men 12 v 56 SUNY-Maritime College Men
Tries: Louie Brown (1) & Jeff Montoya (1).
Cons: Stephen Kpundeh (1).
In the first half Vassar conceded 4 tries and even though nothing had gone to plan for the Brewers one felt there was still an opportunity to get back into this contest. The set piece, scrum and lineout, had begun well enough and Number 8
Ankit Khosla had made a couple of good runs from a steady platform. The lineouts had been driven for good yards and if Vassar had managed to keep the ball scores might have resulted.
But the undoing of the Vassar men was the number of turnovers. Seventeen in the first half alone! Rarely did the team go through multiple phases and any good progress was halted by either a stripped ball, a knock-on, a lost ruck or in the latter stages of the first 40 lost set piece.
Errors cost Vassar yards, momentum and confidence. But the real killer was the missed tackles that just compounded any lost possession. The Privateers just grew in confidence and it showed in their running and offloading.
Vassar did manage a couple of consolation scores when captain Louie Brown went over and he was followed by the hard working
Jeff Montoya at the finish but these were tries that were needed in the first 15 minutes of the game!
Vassar has won 7 of the last 9 games against Maritime and last year they fell in the regular season 20-19 but came back to win the Division title 34-19 in November 2017. The Brewers will now have to battle back to that championship game again to get another shot.
Team: 15 James Christensen 14 Ryan Chan 13 Stephen Kpundeh 12 Jeff Montoya 11 Roy Ochieng 10 Nate Cuson 9 Evan Roberts 1 Mike Cardenas 2 Louie Brown 3 Dale Lord 4 Ali Sadek 5 Logan Ragsdale 6 Kushin Mukherjee 7 Chris Duncan 8 Ankit Khosla Subs: Levi Tuck for Ankit Khosla.
