Heading into the weekend’s matches we were excited about the opportunity to take on Mystic River and looking forward to testing ourselves against a team that has won 2 of the last 4 Division 1 National Championships and has a successful D2 side as well.

The Exiles got off to a fairly strong start behind the boot of Danny Giannascoli and held a 6-0 lead 15 minutes into the match. Unfortunately from there Mystic River was able to gain control and turn a match that was 6-14 at halftime into a 6-43 scoreline.

As Coach Jamie said – we wanted to put ourselves against the best and today we did. We came up short but the score doesn’t do justice to the progress we’ve made. We got a lesson in defense and got worn down which led to mistakes in the final quarter after the game had been a real fight for an hour. This match has given us a lot to learn from and we’ll be strong for it.

Chase Haberstroh played a strong match from the No. 8 position to earn himself Man of the Match honors for the 2nd time in three weeks.

D1 Scorers:
T:
C:
P: Danny G (2)

The second match was a thrilling affair that saw Troop get off to a slow start and give up 4 early tries to take a 0-24 deficit. However, a James Lesniak try and conversion from Ryan Tower on the stroke of halftime helped right the ship a bit and Bouba Bangoura continued his torrid run of play with a try 2 minutes into the second half to bring the score to 12-24. Mystic was able to answer back and make it 12-29 and then the teams traded tries with Matt Rhodes finding the try zone for a third consecutive match. With the score at 19-34 Troop got late tries from Kobie Tuckson and Jon Ahern to close the gap but couldn’t get the final score in a 29-34 defeat.

After the match Coach Jamie indicated that we may have allowed a seed of doubt to creep in ahead of the second match which showed in how we played the first 20 minutes. However, the boys came back really hard and made a great match off it. This Mystic River side was a legitimate D2 side who we could have beaten and this match was our best performance yet. Again, we will learn from this match and the first lesson is that we can hang with the big boys.

Bryce Lanhart earned man of the match honors for his work in the flanker position.

D2 Scorers:
T: Bouba Bangoura (1), James Lesniak (1), Jon Ahern (1), Kobie Tuckson (1), Matt Rhodes (1)
C: Ryan Tower (2)
P:

Debuts:
Cleeandre Ross – Indiana University

Photo links:
John Ahern Sr: https://photos.app.goo.gl/nkSJjAQJo33cHEsu8
Gary Citrone: https://lensdump.com/a/Izbcv
Lisa Berger: Shared to our Facebook page

Season Scoring Totals:
Exiles:
T: Alex Ruiz (2), Ben Janssen (2), Danny Giannascoli (2) Jack Ramirez (2), Aaron Gray (1), Chase Haberstroh (1), Chris Wiggins (1), Dan Berger (1), Jeff Hall (1)
C: Danny Giannascoli (7), Alex Ruiz (3), Alex Walsh (1)
P: Danny Giannascoli (7)

Troop:
T: Bouba Bangoura (3), Matt Rhodes (3), Kobie Tuckson (2), Kyle Kent (2), Anthony Sessa (1), James Lesniak (1), Jon Ahern (1), Matt Zebrowski (1),
C: Ryan Tower (8), Jon Ahern (1), Kyle Kent (1),
P: