On February 6th UF hosted Florida Atlantic University in a spring matrix match. The gators came out early with dominant scrumming, winning a vast majority of the scrums and scoring tries in the forwards. The conditions were wet, limiting back line play for most of the game. The gators went into the final 20 minutes of the game up 3 tries, 1 conversion and one penalty and found themselves knocking on FAU’s door and being denied any more points. Finally, after the FAU defense held strong during UF’s assault ,Flyhalf Matias Groetaers opted for a drop goal, putting the final score at 23-0. While the team is pleased with a shut out, the failure to click, and lack of discipline left the team frustrated and motivated to work hard at the next practice.
The Gator’s B team played a shortened and lopsided match until an injury plagued FAU called it quits.
On Feb 13th UF travelled down to Tampa to play the University of South Florida. USF was currently at the top of the standings in the Florida competition and the referee before the game stated his opinion that “the two best teams in Florida” were about to play. UF proved to be the better of the two, scoring early and often, with four tries in the first half. With a strong wind to their backs, a good kicking game, and excellent support the Gators clicked. A vast improvement in team discipline was seen, with players keeping quite and calm and letting their captains and coaches do the talking. In the second half the team expected USF to come out fired up and determined to defend themselves from embarrassment on their home field. From the kick off this looked to be so, as USF exploited an overload and had room to run. Then an errant pass bounced behind a USF player and into the hands of UF wing Josh Nicdao, who at full pace put in the 5th try of the day. Several more tries followed with a final score of 47-0 in UF’s favor.
The C team kicked of earlier in the day against FSU, shutting them out 26-0.
The Killer B’s followed the A side match and nearly matched the A side score, with another high scoring shutout.
The combined score of the UF A, B and C sides was 112-0.
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