By Larry Mullenix
Arizona Daily Wildcat
The Arizona men's club rugby team hoped this would be the year that they could finally defeat the Air Force Academy.
But that didn't happen.
A much more skilled and conditioned squad routed the Wildcats 48-7 in a match that should have been much closer.
The tide turned early in the first half with Air Force getting two long runs by Valentine Arbogast and Jim Lamar which victimized the less experienced wing and flanker positions of the Wildcats.
The Falcons didn't let up on the Wildcats either by building a 29-0 halftime lead. The score really didn't reflect how the Wildcats played, however.
Had it not been for a couple of missed tackles, the Wildcats might have been able to stay competitive.
The second half started much the same way that
the first ended.
Air Force scored first to essentially put the game out of reach but still was unable to derail a scrappy Wildcat team.
Joe Kindall scored Arizona's only try of the game on a play that saw Tim Goodrich pass off for Kindall to run into the try zone.
UA assistant coach Dave King said that his team's resiliency was something to build on.
"A lot of teams would have just given up if they got down that much to such a good squad. I'm proud to say that we hung in their in the second half. We weren't outscored by that much in the second half."
Arizona hopes that they can gain more momentum going into Saturday's home match against ASU.