By Harry Barsan
Louisville rugby dominated the Western Michigan Broncos on Saturday in a statement victory in the MAC conference semifinals.
After finishing the regular season with back-to-back road wins against Dayton and Cincinnati, the Cardinals made it to the conference postseason as the No. 2 seed to face off at home against the No. 3 seeded Western Michigan Broncos.
The Cards played at Western Michigan much earlier in the season, winning 27-15 on the Broncos’ home turf.
Bad blood
The Broncos looked poised and ready early on, as a penalty almost immediately led to a long kick to open the scoring at 0-3. But the Cards answered quickly with a penalty kick of their own, the MAC’s regular season top scorer JB Meier nailed a chip-shot to make it 3-3.
Consecutive tries by Devon Roosa and Amarreon Mclaurin made it 17-3. By this point there was a lot of extracurricular activity going on between both teams. There was as little as brief bickering and as much as excessive pushing-and-shoving, and at times teammates had to intervene before things got more serious.
Nonetheless, the Cards remained unflappable. They tacked on another try from center Brennan Mortonstrauss to end the half. After being down 3-0 early, the Cards shut down the Broncos offense to make it 24-3 at the half.
Rising stakes
In the second half things picked up fast. The Broncos progressed deep into Cardinal territory and looked to score early on, but the Cardinal defense made a monstrous and nearly three-minute stand that ended by forcing a turnover.
In spite of an invigorated crowd and team, the Broncos eventually got the ball back and scored.
While still leading comfortably, the Cardinals knew they wouldn’t let one slip away. They tacked on a penalty kick to bring their lead to 27-10.
The second half remained just as chippy as the first. One fight even went completely unnoticed by the sir, but resolved before things really got out of hand. It was clear what weight this game and its implications was not lost on the men on the field.
Time was running out and while the Broncos made worthy efforts on offense, no points came of it.
With the Broncos already on their last leg, a robust Louisville defense pinned them deep into their own territory. In an effort to put pressure back onto the Cardinals, they attempted to kick it back in hopes of a Cardinal miscue, but it got blocked, eventually leading to a game-sealing try by Roosa for his second of the match.
The Cardinals ended on top with a resounding 34-10 victory and punched their ticket to Bowling Green, where they will face the Falcons on Saturday.
The Falcons handed the Cardinals their lone conference loss of the season in a tight 22-21 week 7 duel. With a performance like this, the Cardinals certainly look unperturbed by the past and are more than ready to keep rolling on.
Photo Courtesy // Louisville Rugby
