September 18, 2024
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L-P rugby club competes in inaugural season

By Kevin Chlum
Members of the Cavalier Rugby Club pose for a photo with players from the Plainfield club after the teams competed in a scrimmage April 10. It was the first scrimmage for the La Salle-Peru club. L-P team members are Brock Turzick, Ty Turzick, Jacob Arthur, Bradley Perez and Drew Roda. The team is coached by Fran Baker and Troy Turzick.

Members of the Cavalier Rugby Club pose for a photo with players from the Plainfield club after the teams competed in a scrimmage April 10. It was the first scrimmage for the La Salle-Peru club. L-P team members are Brock Turzick, Ty Turzick, Jacob Arthur, Bradley Perez and Drew Roda. The team is coached by Fran Baker and Troy Turzick.

Fran Baker started playing rugby in 1993 when he was stationed in Italy with the U.S. Navy.

He played four years in the Navy and played at Illinois State University before continuing his career with the Chicago Blaze until 2008.

Now, Baker shares his love of the sport with area youth.

He founded the Illinois Valley Rugby Club in 2019, and with some members of that youth program now in high school, Baker approached La Salle-Peru about starting a club at the school.

The Cavalier Rugby Club is in its inaugural season and competed in its first scrimmage April 10 in Plainfield.

“One thing I like about rugby is it teaches safe contact,” Baker said. “Even though there are no pads, the ball carrier will always be in front of you. Nobody is going across the middle. There are no blindside hits. It’s illegal to tackle above the chest. It’s illegal to lead with your head. When you make a tackle, you have to go down with the guy you tackle. There are a lot of safety aspects I like about it.

“A big thing about rugby is the camaraderie. After the game Sunday, the Plainfield kids and L-P kids were sitting together, talking. It wasn’t like we just shook hands and left. We hung out for a little bit and had a social event with sandwiches, chips and drinks. We got to know each other. The camaraderie is already starting, and it’s pretty cool to see.”

L-P athletic director Dan Le said the school is excited to offer another extracurricular choice for students.

“We always promote finding something for kids to be involved in,” Le said. “There’s always a correlation of school success in relation to getting involved in extracurriculars. [Rugby] expands our students’ horizons a little bit to see what else is out there. Ultimately, it gives students another opportunity to be involved and hopefully find something they enjoy.”

The L-P club has six members, which is not enough to field a team in the typical rugby formats of 15 a side, 10 a side or seven a side, so this season playing in the Rugby Illinois small school division, L-P will combine with other teams for scrimmages.

“We’re in the small school division where most of the schools are just starting out,” Baker said. “We’ll co-op with those schools until we build up enough to have our own team, which hopefully will be next year.”

The L-P club has a couple of players who competed with the IV youth club and a couple of other players who practiced with the youth club but weren’t able to gain game experience during the last couple of years because of COVID-19.

“The best way for them to learn is to actually play the game,” Baker said. “We got to do that [April 10] in Plainfield. They all learned a lot about the game [that day] more so than any coaching would do with just five or six guys at practice.

“We played 7-on-7. Plainfield had about 10 kids. We were mixing and matching. We had a certified referee to help. He’d stop the game and explain the rule when we might have made a mistake. The whole purpose for the scrimmage was a learning experience.”

The high school season typically runs from April 1 to mid June.

This spring, L-P will have six dates getting together with other small school division teams for practices and scrimmages and by the end of the season will play thee or four matches against Division II teams.

L-P will not host any matches this season, but Le said the school plans to in the future, potentially at the L-P Sports Complex since rugby is played on a similarly sized field to soccer.

A typical high school season will be eight to 10 matches followed by playoffs.

Rugby Illinois is divided into a northern league and southern league. There are about 40 schools in the northern league.

Rugby is divided into Division I, Division IA, Division II and small schools division. A school’s division is determined by school size and team skill.

This season, L-P is competing in the small school division with Lake County, Lane Tech, Quad Cities, Springfield, Chillicothe and Plainfield.

With good numbers in the youth club, Baker hopes to grow the high school program.

“Our goal is to get more numbers,” Baker said. “One thing we do at the end of each practice is talk about not only rugby or the practice, but we talk about their grades being the most important thing and how to be good people. It’s really important to me to express the rugby culture and family aspect of the game.

“Our goals are really to make sure kids have fun, and they learn and become better people.”