Coming off a great win last weekend against Boulder, Northern Colorado were looking to build and continue to develop against the Colorado School of Mines at home in Timnath. With the Flamingo’s the victor 24 – 10
The game kicked off with Northern Colorado scoring within 10 minutes after some great backline work from Todd Oswald and Drew Grigsby. Grigsby was the eventual Try scorer and the conversion was made
However, the excitement was soon over as Northern Colorado went on to concede several penalties over the next ten minutes in the rucks and mauls to allow CSM to get some great ball movement and eventually score under the posts. With the conversion, the scores were tied up at 7. The game continued back and forth again with the penalty count mounting in the favor of mines and the Flamingos were unable to get any steady momentum because of this and the number of turnovers due to silly passes that were never going to hand. Northern Colorado came close on two occasions to scoring again, but if not for a drop ball and a silly penalty against winger Nate Holmes for pushing a defender while chasing down a clever kick from Graepler of a Well earned tight head scrum. The Clock ticked over and so did the simple mistakes for the flamingos. The Forwards were rumbling forward well but trying to do to much was the issue of the day. Instead of doing the basics and holding onto the ball, the big pack forced to many passes and turned over the ball to much for any real momentum to taken advantage of. If it wasn’t for some quick thinking from Richard Carter, and a quick tap to dart through the scrambling defense to dot a try over, the scores would have been locked at 7 – 7 going into the half.
Half time: Northern Colorado 14 – CSM 7
The 2nd half started much the way the 1st did. The Flamingos came out fired up and through some great forward work set the backs up to allow winger Kyle Hosmer to score his 1st try of the day. But again the drop balls, turn overs and penalties mounted and we were back in the same position as the 1st half. No good ball, and no momentum to build off. CSM took an easy 3 pointer to close the scores. However, through all the penalties and turn overs the Flamingos mounted one last good set of phase work and momentum to allow the backs to work some magic and set Kyle up for his second of the day. The score did not change for the remainder of the game as again, silly penalties and far to many turn overs at the break down cost the Flamingo’s the ball retention they needed to score more points.
Final Score: 24 – 10
Man of the match: Mike Bockelman
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