First game set
A budding rivalry gets its first official game Saturday when two area high school rugby clubs –– one from the east side of Volusia County and the other from the west side –– play a match.
The Daytona Beach Area High School Rugby Club and the Deltona Rugby Club have played twice in exhibitions, but Saturday’s 11 a.m. match at Lake Mary Prep will count in league play.
Many players from Volusia County’s only rugby teams for high school students have played against each other in football.
“The football rivalries have transferred over to the rugby field,” Deltona coach Kevin Wathen said. “It’s still there.”
All of Deltona’s players are from Pine Ridge, where Wathen is a teacher.
The Daytona Beach team is composed of players from Seabreeze, Mainland, Spruce Creek and Atlantic high schools, coach Trent Vesely said, so when that team was formed three years ago it had to deal with rivalries from those schools. It didn’t take long for players to bond, Vesely said, but there still is friendly trash talk at practices.
“It was funny because the first year some of these kids were bitter rivals, then they end up on the same team in rugby,” Vesely said. “They still trash talk a little at practice. It’s all in fun. They’ll say stuff like, ‘Wow, you’re even smaller without pads.’ ”
While the Daytona Beach players have pretty much put their football rivalries aside, it’s a different matter when the talk turns to this new rivalry between the two clubs. One thing that’s going to help spur the rivalry is the clubs appear to be evenly matched.
“Our two teams are probably the top two teams in the (Florida Youth Rugby Union) North Division,” Vesely said. “We’re both 2-0.”
Other teams in the division are Fort Pierce Lincoln Park Academy and Orlando.
Wathen agreed that the two Volusia County teams are about equal at this point.
“We played (Daytona Beach) in a friendly scrimmage and in the Brevard jamboree. It was back and forth, evenly matched on both sides of the ball,” Wathen said.
The teams also are scheduled to play at noon March 3 at Embry-Riddle.
Sean Kernan
DELTONA — Miles Moore is one of those athletic kids who never made his way into high school sports — a diamond in the rough.
Kevin Wathen is one of those 23-year-old, fresh-faced teachers who had an idea.
All they needed was each other.
Moore was in Wathan’s remedial-ed class one day, and the teacher asked him whether he was fast. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m fast.”
Wathan revealed his idea: Rugby.
A few days later, Moore was one of only three to show. But after that first practice, he liked it enough to
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