2018 USAR Men's Collegiate All-Americans vs Glendale Raptors

All Americans Show Class In Win Over Glendale

All Americans Show Class In Win Over Glendale

The Collegiate All Americans finished up camp with a victory over the Glendale Raptors.

Aug 18, 2018 by Alex Goff
All Americans Show Class In Win Over Glendale

The USA Rugby Men’s Collegiate All Americans made an impressive statement with a 55-10 defeat of the Glendale Raptors Friday night in Infinity Park in Glendale, CO.


The game was the culmination of a week-long assembly for the All Americans, and a stern test as the youngsters were pit against an experienced and savvy (if out-of-season) Glendale team.

“We all know how good Glendale is,” said All American prop Alex Maughan (Life University) before the game. “Out of all the MLR teams I think they have the most capped USA players. They certainly have a lot of them. I have played with and against a lot of those guys and we know they are going to try to smash us.”


It’s the usual MO between an older team and a younger team - beat the youngsters with power. The Younger team then tries to play fast. Maughan, however, unveiled a slightly different approach.

“Why can’t we smash them?” He said. “We can play fast, and we will, and we’ll try to use our fitness, but we also feel people will be writing us off and we are going to give them as big of a contest, everywhere, as possible.”


With their marching orders, the All Americans struck early, and took a shocking 34-5 lead into the break. Harley Wheeler scored early and added a second, while Deion Mikesell's run beat three Raptors in three different ways. Duncan Van Schalkwyk was superb in his kicking.

The All Americans rolled from there, punishing turnovers and scrumming extremely well.

More than the result, the performance showed that the All American program still has some weight to throw around when it comes to developing young players. This might not have been Glendale at 100%, and this might also have been an All American assembly with some rough timing and even missing a player or two, but the Collegiates showed the benefit of almost a week in camp.

All Americans 55
Tries: Wheeler 3, Wnglewski, Mikesell, Rodriguez, McNerney
Convs; Van Schalkwyk 6, Wilson
Pens: Van Schalkwyk 2