VALERIE H. QUINTERO | sports editor
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courtesy of Joel Simpson
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| The 2009 Azusa Pacific club rugby team currently has a 2-3 record. |
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Since Tuesday, Feb. 24 the Azusa Pacific rugby club team has been without their head coach, Roche Sanchez.
Sanchez acted as head coach for the rugby team since 1996. The departure is due a recent illness of Sanchez’s daughter, who has been in the hospital.
Since Sanchez coached the Cougars free of charge, he usually found monetary compensation from referring rugby matches.
As a result of Sanchez leaving, the team has had to rely on student leadership.
Freshman biblical studies major Scott Cody tore his ACL in the second game of the season, putting him on the sidelines. Cody has currently taken on the responsibilities of coach for the team.
Cody came to Azusa Pacific partly to become a pastor and partly to play rugby, as he played rugby his entire high school career.
“I have a tendency to get busy and stressed out with life and rugby is a nice outlet where I can run, having that outlet within rugby was a wonderful thing in the first semester,” Cody said. “This semester, it’s coming out in a different way because I’m not running around but rather I’m coaching. But ultimately, that still kind of has an effect because I want to be a pastor; I want to teach people, raise them up, so I’m kind of doing that, but in a different aspect being a coach.”
The team practices four hours every week, plus has games scheduled for almost every Saturday. Practices have changed slightly under the student leadership.
“[Roche Sanchez] had a bunch of different drills that he would incorporate into practices and we are trying to keep most of the fundamentals of those drills in but we’re incorporating a lot of new drills,” junior English major and rugby captain Brandon Runyon said. “We’ve had a couple of different guys, like Scott [Cody], Drew [Nicholson], and myself who have come from different clubs in the area and have different drills, which all cover the basic fundamentals of the game and we’re just incorporating those new drills, getting a feel for different things and trying to see what’s working, what’s not working.”
The rugby team, which has roughly 30 members, has been recently practicing at Memorial Park. During practices, the team finds themselves practicing amidst tennis matches, a soccer game and a baseball game.
Throughout the school year the rugby team has been kicked off three different fields before finding this current site. Finding a field to practice is another issue that the team has had to deal with.
Junior music major Joel Simpson has been playing on the rugby club team for two years and believes that the team is closer than in years past.
“We’re definitely more of a family, more of a brotherhood cause I’ve never felt that the entire two years we’ve been here. We’re just trying to stay together as a family and not break apart with all the hardships like with the field and with our coach now,” Simpson said.
Thus far, the team is 2-3 this season with an upcoming home game against USC on Saturday, March 14.
According to Runyon, the match against USC is not being treated special and that the team will prepare for that match, as they would against any other opponent. Runyon has high hopes for the rest of the season.
“We’re hoping to do go into those four games [of the season] and win. We should do well, we should win and that’s our plan,” Runyon said.
The members of the team hope to stay strong, as well as support Sanchez during this time.
“With Roche [Sanchez] being out we’re going to come together to do fundraisers and do whatever we can to help him out. And as a result of that, the team is seemingly like becoming a cohesive unit and really just working together,” Cody said. “I see beneficial things coming out of that where people are coming to work together because they have to.”
