Three years ago this team was founded, cobbling together what we thought amounted to some sort of practice on a field behind the library they called the 'Tundra.' We had few resources, little direction, and no idea what the future would hold for us.
We began practicing alongside the Springfield Rifles RFC. They taught us almost everything we knew at that point, helping us to a draw against Franklin Pierce University in our first-ever foray onto the pitch as a team, and then to a dominant eight-try shutout in a scrimmage against the nascent Westfield State program, the beginning of a local rivalry that continues to this day.
During the last week before everyone went home for the summer, our captain and founder, Brian "Blee" Costello, sent out a text calling the available members of the team to the campus center. A number of us made it to the meeting, and Blee read aloud the letter that informed us we had been accepted into the New England Rugby Football Union's Fourth Division for the next fall. We were in business.
We won the Division that year, booked ourselves a place in D-III after that, where we remain currently.
This match against the Rifles, it is going to be the end of an era for this club. This will the last match to feature any of the Originals, the men who remember the Tundra. Next fall, WNEC Rugby will join the Colonial Coast Conference, part of a nationwide re-structuring of collegiate rugby as well as marking a new era for the club filled with new challenges and many new opponents. The New Leaders have already stepped to the plate and we trust in leaving the team in their hands, but this last match will celebrate the Old Guard as much as it will the future.
The lineup will be as follows:
1 - Ryan "Shedlock" Shultz
2 - Jon "Frenchie Where's My Eyebrow?" Ouellette
3 - Mike Fielding
4 - Jake Eastman
5 - Sean Gallagher
6 - DJ Shermer
7 - Johnny Esposito (Senior)
8 - Cheers Tom 8-man Get Me a Jersey LeClair (Senior)
9 - Zack Phelan
10 - Anthony Caprio (Senior)
11 - Barney Davis (Senior)
12 - Stephen Farnham
13 - "Weird" Will Reilly
20 - Jon Fields (Senior)
15 - La Quan "Pookie" Schoolfield
Johnny Esposito makes his final appearance in the number 7 jersey that has been indisputably his from the very beginning. A talismanic presence, Espo will rightly end his time here in a position he made his own. For years to come, he will be the standard by which all WNEC openside flankers will be judged.
Tom LeClair, who began his career at lock but has since developed himself into one of the most versatile and complete rugby players out there. Although starting at eightman, he could slot into almost any other position on the field with ease.
Ant Caprio began his career at Nichols College before joining the boys in blue. A fiery and hardnosed competitor, it is great that he gets one last chance to pull on the jersey with the club before the curtain falls.
Barney Davis has been a member of this club longer than anyone else left, appointing himself historian and song leader. Having toiled away at winger, center, flyhalf, fullback, scrumhalf, flanker, and hooker over the years, he makes his final appearance where it all began, the left wing.
Jon Fields was a late addition to the team but the brevity of his service has done little to limit his impact. He topped the try scoring charts last fall and looks to add more to his jacket as he makes his last appearance for the team in his favored number 20 jersey.
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