When St. Thomas rugby coach Jim Wolfinger said that defense was one of the strengths of this year’s Eagles team, it proved to be more than just words. After Thursday’s 27-0 victory over Kingwood, the St. Thomas rugby team heads into spring break with a 7-1 record.

And with the shutout in this win, the Eagles have given up an average of less than two points per game.

“Defense is one of the things we work on quite a bit,” Wolfinger said. “We have been very, very good at defense for this year. We have only allowed 15 points this year I believe.”

It was a good thing that the defense was on point, because early on the Eagles’ offense struggled. Conner Mills got things started when he cashed in on a free kick to put three points on the board.

Then with less than 18 minutes remaining in the first half, the Eagles’ Paul Rogers scored the game’s first try. Though St. Thomas had an 8-0 advantage at half, Wolfinger said their heads might not have been in the game at that time.

I think the kids came out a little bit flat because they are thinking about spring break, which kids are prone to do,” Wolfinger said of his team’s first-half performance. “But they picked it up in the second half and did the things they had to do to win.”

And the Eagles did exactly that. St. Thomas’ Todd Zdunkewicz extended the lead with an early second-half try. After this score the game intensity picked up quite a bit, but neither team could capitalize for more than 20 minutes.

With less than 5 minutes to go in regulation, the Eagles’ Christian Hernandez found a crease and scored another try. Soon after, Zdunkewicz would hit pay dirt again and score his second try. Mills made the conversion on both tries.

With another win in the bag, Wolfinger and the Eagles team have one thing in mind.

“We’re on a roll and we have a mission which is to win a state championship and go on to the West and hopefully nationals,” Wolfinger said. “We’re overall 7-1 right now and only a 5-3 defeat was our only loss this year. But we have to win each game and build on it.”
 

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