Men's Team Maximize Fall
Dear Penn State Rugby Family,
In a normal year this note is a celebratory post-Fall season recap. We are again Rugby East Champions, we added 10 talented new freshmen to the roster, 15 players from Penn State were part of the Rugby East All-Conference teams and we were prepping for our off-season training to get healthy and return in the Spring for a National Championship run….
However, this is not a normal year and COVID-19 has created an interesting and less than ideal fall season. Early on in the year we were given the notice that we were not able to train on campus or have access to any facilities, essentially removing all our Athletic Department support. Thankfully, we are lucky to have an extremely supportive group of alumni and parents, we were able to provide a gym membership at Victory Sports Performance (a long time supporter of the program) to the teams. While the team was able to run a few field sessions comprised of mainly some touch and a few individual skills sessions, keeping in mind health and safety of everyone, we stayed the course and focused on the things that we could do.
We analyzed both professional and previous Penn State matches, developed our playbook, spent time getting stronger in the gym and as a team and created some internal team competition (where the dragons were victorious). While not on the field competing, the team have done an extraordinary job staying positive, working to get better and knocking their academics out of the park!
As we head towards the spring and wait to see what that will bring, we plan to remain optimistic but also work on contingencies. We will plan to back-load the schedule giving us time to get back to a level of fitness and contact readiness to compete once again. The Rugby East have added old time Penn State rival Navy back to the fold, not only strengthening our overall conference but bringing back an age-old rival. We are excited to compete against these teams once we return.
We thank you for all your support and we look forward to being on the field again, having everyone back in State College and celebrating the Legacy of Penn State Rugby.
Happy Holidays!
Justin Hundley, Men’s Head Coach
