By Justin Woodard

Students at UW-Whitewater know the football team usually is going to be competitive year after year. Those students also know the volleyball team is pretty good, too. But those who don’t follow sports as closely as others probably don’t know the Warhawks won a Division-II championship in rugby just three years ago.

In fact, some students probably don’t even know the school has a rugby team that competes at a high level. While rugby is considered a club sport on campus, the team competes against other universities in the fall and spring. In the fall, they play their conference schedule, and the fall season is also the team’s opportunity to compete for a national title.

The ‘Hawks have won their first two matches to start this season. At home on Sept. 15, they defeated the University of Marquette, 48-0, and on the road this past Saturday, they defeated UW-Platteville, 65-5.

Team President Joseph Grams and Vice President Tyler Fuchs have been a part of the team for a few years, and they both believe this team can compete with any team.

“We have a strong core group of guys that are dedicated, experienced and willing to put in extra effort in order to succeed,” Grams said. “Having new players that share the same enthusiasm for winning as the old guys do helps increase our depth and enhance our competitiveness even more.”

Both Grams and Fuchs believe this team is good enough to win it all, and anything less would be a disappointment.

“Our expectations are to win our conference and compete at the national level,” Fuchs said. “We believe we have the talent it takes to be the best team in the nation.”

During the fall season, the top two teams from the conference qualify for the NCAA Midwest Tournament, which is the beginning of the road to a national championship.

Like Fuchs and Grams, the team secretary Alex Kitchner thinks his team should be competing with the best teams in the country again this season.

“We have an extremely athletic pack of forwards that only lost a couple of players from last year, and our back line is full of veterans that play the game very well,” Kitchner said. “We have athletes all over the field, and we just play sound rugby.”

Through two games, the ‘Hawks have already scored a total of 113 points, and they have only allowed five points. With two blowout wins, it doesn’t seem like the ‘Hawks have much to work on in practice in the coming weeks, but there is always room for improvement.

No matter what the sport is, there is never a good reason to underestimate an opponent.

“Our competition will continue to get harder as the season goes on,” Grams said. “We have to focus on playing crisp, smart rugby. We have many dynamic players this year that can adapt to various situations on the pitch. The main thing we have to focus on is keeping penalties to a minimum and executing the fundamentals properly.”