Men's rugby earned two victories over the weekend, stopping the St. Louis Bombers RFC 37-17 on Friday, and then defeating Iowa Central Community College 36-5 on Saturday at Hunter Stadium in St. Charles, Missouri.

In the match against the Bombers, Chris Schoeman opened scoring for the Lions in the first two minutes off of a cross-field kick from freshman Connor Burns.  Lindenwood continued to score the rest of the half while shutting out their opponent.  Deion Mikesell scored twice to give the Lions a 32-0 lead at the break.  Lindenwood rolled out mixed teams in the second half to test out different combinations and looks.  The Lions were outscored 17-5, but still controlled the outcome.

The game against the Tritons on Saturday was much different as it took nearly 30 minutes of game time before Lindenwood was able to score against a pesky Iowa Central defense.  The Lions managed five tries, but turnovers plagued their ability to string phases together in a stop-start type of match. 

The two wins bode well for the future of the team as half of the 12 tries in the two games came from freshmen, which Head Coach Josh Macy noted.

"We're working hard to onboard this new class of Lions," he said.  "It was great to see some of them put their hands up for our coming tour of Texas and Louisiana.  Some of the freshmen like Skyler Mitchell and Brendan Wallner really stood out just for doing their jobs.  Wallner was especially impressive in his first game at fullback because he arrived from Minnesota as a flyhalf."

Senior Jack Huckstepp was optimistic about the rest of the season.

"I think both games went very well for us," he said.  "As we use this preseason to develop both individually and as a team, we can take a lot out of this weekend.  We played two games with two fairly evenly split teams across our squad and still came away with two wins.  That puts us in good standing for our competitive season."

Lindenwood faces a southern road trip in the coming week.  The Lions will face Texas A & M at 7 p.m. October 26 at the University Rugby Fields in College Station, Texas, and then battle LSU at 1 p.m. October 28 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.