Cougars improve to 5-0 in Vegas

This article was published in the BYU Daily Universe on February 14th 2011.

The BYU men’s rugby team outscored its opponents 153-8 during a tournament over the weekend in Las Vegas and improved its overall record to 5-0.

On Friday, the Cougars, ranked No. 2 in the country, pounced on the Nittany Lions of Penn State in a 64-0 effort. Freshmen twins Josh and Jared Whippy from Fiji led the team in scoring with two trys a piece.

Josh didn’t take too much time to strike and scored a try within the first minute of the game. The fast start was indicative of the way the rest of the weekend would go.


Throughout the Penn State game, five other Cougars scored, but the scoring didn’t stop there.

On Saturday, against Cal Poly San Louis Obispo, BYU played 29 players to come out on top, 89-8. Cal Poly scored in the last minute of the game.

The Cougars wasted no time jumping out to a large lead. Ray Forrester scored for BYU within the first minute of the match and by 16 minutes in the Cougars had scored five tries, three of which came from Josh Whippy.

Even though both games were blowouts, vice captain Dylan Lubbe still witnessed a marked improvement in the team.

“In the first game, we were trying to do way too much from the start instead of getting more structured, so in the second game we tried to be a little bit more structured and that helped us out a lot,” Lubbe said.

The numbers showed the improvement. BYU turned the ball over 29 times in the first game and half that much in the second. Lubbe said he hopes this improvement will carry through to the game against Utah on March 5.

“We just need to keep improving and use this weekend as a stepping stone,” Lubbe said. “The more games that we play the better we are getting at adapting to [the] system.”

The Cougars will take on Utah Valley University on Saturday, Feb. 26, in their final preparation game before meeting with Utah to begin conference play. Utah is ranked No. 3 in the nation.

The women’s team also made the trip to Las Vegas to begin its winter season and won both of its games against Chico St. by the score of 51-6, and an all-star team from schools in the Midwest, 11-0.

Senior Keilani Paul of Houston was awarded the game ball for exemplary play. Coach Tom Waqa said he was proud of the girls this weekend and is looking forward to the rest of the season.

“Overall, it was a good weekend. I think we achieved our goal, which was to win and to develop players. I think we are ready for the season,” Waqa said.