Dexter Devils Suffer Tough Loss to Birmingham

Wednesday, 22 April 2015, was a day of nasty surprises for residents of the Dexter area. Temperatures dropped below freezing; it snowed several times; there was a biting wind. But it was not the weather that provided the nastiest surprise on that day for supporters of the Dexter Devils, the high-school Rugby club representing northern Washtenaw County and surrounding areas. No, the biggest shock for Devils fans, wincing as they stamped their feet and blew on their hands along the touchlines at Manly Bennett Park, Hamburg, was the result of Dexter’s second match of the season in Division I East of the Michigan Youth Rugby Association’s high-school league: Dexter 3 Birmingham 5. As they watched Dexter’s last-second kick at goal sail narrowly wide and the opposition rejoice, they had to confront the fact that Dexter had lost to Birmingham for the first time ever, and had failed to score a try in a league match for the first time in years. Head coaches Paul Burke and Doug Karaska had to think about the last time that had happened, and came up with a match at Perrysburg five years ago; at least Dexter won that match (3-0, with a late penalty goal). It is true that the Devils’ A side failed to score in their first match in last year’s Midwest High School Championships in Elkhart, Indiana, but that was against Cathedral of Indianapolis, who just happened to be the no 1 high-school club side in the entire country.

It was clear last week that the Birmingham match would be a challenge: Dexter’s squad this year is much smaller than in recent seasons (for the first time in three years the Devils are fielding only one side) and injuries to big prop Noah Keen, lock Derek Melinsky, and three-quarter Torin Bates took important players out of Wednesday’s line-up. But Dexter’s fans must have found in the first two matches of the season – a 15-12 away win against a tough Dearborn side and a 62-7 home win over Anthony Wayne of Toledo in a non-league match – grounds for optimism, especially since the Dearborn victory had seen the pack play much better than in pre-season scrimmages, even though the coaches had noted that ball-movement among the backs remained imperfect and had been troubled by their side’s inability to convert an overwhelming advantage in possession and territory into significant points.

In the end, a well-drilled Birmingham side, with a very powerful second row, gave Dexter more to think about in conditions that did not favor either Dexter’s fifteen-man game or the side’s generally reliable kicking. At half-time the Devils led 3-0, after a twenty-sixth-minute penalty goal from inside-centre and captain Jake Rayer (Sr, DHS), but in an evenly-balanced match Dexter’s reluctance to move the ball wide in the three-quarters meant that chances for tries had gone begging – most notably a two-man overlap on the left wing some twenty metres out. Moreover, Dexter’s pack, significantly smaller than Birmingham’s, was struggling in rucks and scrums, despite sterling work from its most experienced players, including hooker Tyler Even (Jr, DHS), flanker Erick Leon (Sr, DHS), and no 8 Chris Bryson (Sr, DHS). Props Nick Hubbard (Sr, DHS) and Spencer Vollmers (Sr, DHS, in for Keen) may not be the biggest men at their positions, but they, too, worked very hard, supported by a second row of Aidan Hochrein (DHS, Sr) and Justin Tomshany (Sr, DHS), and blind-side flanker Nathaniel Orlowski (DHS, Jr; like Vollmers and Tomshany, new to the sport this year). Dexter looked under constant pressure in the tight, which made Even’s efficient hooking particularly commendable (and the Devils were fortunate that new rules for schoolboy Rugby mean that a scrum cannot be pushed back more that 1.5 metres) but, despite Birmingham’s size advantage, the home pack produced some outstanding defense, their finest moment of the first half coming when a Birmingham maul had powered the ball into Dexter’s in-goal area, only to be held up by fierce Devils resistance, leading to a Dexter scrum on the five-metre line and at least five points saved. Earlier, poor discipline from the Devils pack had seen them repeatedly penalized for offside at the ruck, resulting eventually in the sin-binning of pack leader Erick Leon for the collective infraction of persistent offside. Dexter survived their ten minutes with fourteen men, producing some excellent attacks in the process, giving Devils supporters hope that the second half would see a stronger all-round performance.

However, when Birmingham’s pack finally drove the ball across the try-line and touched down in the second half, it was clear that the Devils would have to dig deep. The half-back combination of Neil Makin, scrum-half (DHS, So) and Tristin Staebler (DHS, Sr) had some intelligent kicks and generally resisted Birmingham pressure, while outside them centres Rayer and Derek Wittenberg (DHS, Sr) ran and tackled hard and Tyler Smokovitz (Detroit CC, Sr) and Sean Wakefield (DHS, Jr) found space on the wings, although they saw less of the ball than might have been desired. Adam Haas at full-back was, as ever, strong in the tackle, and Jared Juback, Angelos Bairactaris, and Luke Sagmeister all made solid contributions to the back division when they came in, just as Clayton Drenner and Andrew Harding played solid supporting roles in the pack.

Birmingham, apparently lacking a reliable place-kicker, had not converted their try, so, even in the dying minutes of the match, a penalty-goal would have sealed a Dexter win. The Devils coaches had been disappointed to see several apparently kickable penalties declined by Dexter earlier (although one tap-and-run from a half-back inside the twenty-two-metre line did take the ball close to the Birmingham try line), and a late drop-goal attempt did not come close, but a chance to win the match did arrive at the very end, when the Devils were awarded a penalty some twenty metres out and just beyond the posts. Rayer struck the ball well, but it drifted agonizingly wide and the match was lost.

Dexter supporters can console themselves with the fact that last year’s disappointing home defeat to Troy (the first home loss in three years) was the prelude to a great play-off run and a very narrow defeat in the state championship match, but after Wednesday’s defeat Coach Burke emphasized that the Devils had to play more coordinated Rugby, with better rucking, better decision-making, and better ball speed down the three-quarter line if they were to realize their potential this year.

Dexter’s next fixture is a key away match on Wednesday, 29 April, against Division I new boys Genesee Elite, who have already beaten Troy away. It is a 6 p.m. kick-off at Longway Park, Flint.

Spectators are always very welcome, as are new players (the squad practices Monday-Thursday at 5 pm, either at Webster Church field in Dexter or Manly Bennett field in Hamburg). Dexter’s squad list, with further details of the Dexter Rugby program, may be accessed here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lsw6yjvxtvhit0h/DRFC%20Team%20Sheet%202015.pdf?dl=0. For further information on Dexter Rugby, go to the Facebook page for “Dexter Rugby” or to the club web site: www.dexterrugby.com. Follow DRFC on Twitter @DexterRugby. Photo credits: Gina Bryson.