The New Mexico Tech Men’s Rugby Team had an impressive showing at its first non-conference home match, hosting the Lobos of the University of New Mexico, Sept. 17, at the home rugby pitch.

The Miners have been trying to “break the scoreboard” since its installation was recently donated by the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC). Because the scoreboard only has two digits available, the score was stopped at 99-0 until the scorekeeper restarted the scoreboard, and continued to count up the scoreboard again until the team landed on 25 points. The final score of the match was 125-0.

The Miners are in the Small College Division of National Collegiate Rugby (NCR). The Lobos are a Division 1A USA Rugby team. The University of New Mexico team is in a rebuilding year, as this was the majority of their team’s first rugby match. The Miners also had a couple of new players, Nathan Erickson and Luke Fletcher, taking the pitch for the first time at the match.

Within the match’s first 20 minutes, the Miners were up 47-0 with seven different players scoring in that timeframe. Overall, 11 different Miners players scored, with five of those players having multiple scores. Of those scoring players, all four of the New Mexico Tech Miners rugby captains scored: Xavier Romero, Tyler Ortiz, Niko Crosato, and Milaan Van Wyk. Van Wyk had four tries of his own in the second half alone, according to the Miners new coach, Christopher Hathaway.

“The team looked organized and disciplined on offense, which has been a large focus of my plan to push NMT rugby up to the next level,” he said. “With so much talent at each position, if this team continues to work hard, the potential is limitless as long as we stay determined.”

Hathaway said UNM’s team exploited a few areas of improvement for the Miners, such as ball and ruck security.

“The Lobos were able to counter ruck, enabling them to disrupt our offensive rhythm,” Hathaway said.

Katie Bauer, NMT Communications