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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Community Submission: Rugby Teams off to Flying Start in VRU Season

The Longwood men and women's rugby teams are off to a great start for the Fall Virginia Rugby Union (VRU) season. The men's team has already collected a win against Virginia Tech, but lost a very hard game to Old Dominion University last week 12-7. The team was looking to get on the winning side of things again this past Friday against the University of Richmond (UR) Spiders. Longwood has had a recent winning streak against UR and early on it looked like Richmond was going to change that. UR converted an early penalty and then scored a try to make the score 10-0 after 10 minutes. Longwood scored but Richmond kept up the momentum and still had the lead 13-7 after 25 minutes.

With a very large crowd, including the men's soccer team, cheering LU on under the lights, Longwood came alive with two tries from TJ Van Petten and Alex Randall and a conversion from Eric Minor and took the halftime lead at 19-13. The second half was a different story. Brant Hawkins, Dan Waite and Ben Smith provided speed that Richmond could not match. Smith scored but was sin-binned for 10 minutes in what could have proven a pivotal point in the game. Waite scored with LU a man short and the game was closed out from there at 36-23. The win puts LU in a tie for first place in the VRU after three weeks of the season.

On Saturday, the Longwood women's rugby team played the University of Richmond. The women's team has been impressive so far, scoring over 35 points per game with wins over Appalachian State University and Old Dominion and a narrow loss to Virginia Tech. The young and inexperienced UR team was no match for the back three for LU, Gabby Dixon, Josie Ziluca and Emily Grove. Ziluca scored five tries and Dixon scored nine on the way to a total of 16 tries for the team and an 86-0 victory.

The win improved the women's record to 3-1 (2-0 in league play) and first place in the Union. Both the men and women return to action after the fall break, when they travel to Lexington, Va. to take on Virginia Military Institute (VMI). Complete schedule information can be found on the website longwoodrugby.org and you can follow the team on Twitter @longwoodrugby.

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