Columbus’ Jackson Haston runs through the North Central defense during a 69-0 season-opening win April 16 at McCullough’s Run Park.
Submitted photo
The sport of rugby has a rich tradition in Columbus, both at the adult level and at the high school club level.
Columbus won a boys rugby club state championship in 2012 and fielded a team until the latter part of that decade prior to the COVID pandemic. This year, the boys high school program has been revived, thanks to an effort by the adult rugby players.
“Once COVID hit, it kind of fell apart,” said Matt Morrill, who is coaching the team. “So we kind of wanted to get it back going again. We had a couple unsuccessful attempts, but then this year, we had a great bunch of guys that wanted to come out, and it really made a huge difference. We were able to chat with some teams (at the schools) and let them know what we were doing and how rugby is a great sport and can help you develop the skills for all of the other sports you might play. So (North football) coach (Logan) Haston and (North wrestling) coach (Matt) Joyce let us have a chat with some of their players, we have some great young players and some really talented senior players, as well.”
Four seniors from Haston’s football team, including his son Jackson, are leaders of this year’s rugby squad. Jackson Haston, a safety in football who also wrestled for the Bull Dogs, is headed to Franklin College to play football.
“For me personally, it was probably just going to be a spring of working out and running and getting bigger and faster, and I thought, ‘Hey, why not have some fun while doing it,’” Jackson Haston said. “So I came out for rugby and have had a little fun while getting fit.”
Evan Saevre, who led the state in tackles for losses and was The Republic co-Football Player of the Year last fall, also wrestled at North and is headed to Lakeland University to wrestle.
“Going to wrestle in college, you have to be super aggressive, so I thought I’d come out and give rugby a try,” Saevre said. “I heard it’s an aggressive sport, so I might as well learn to be aggressive here.”
Miles Davis, a guard on the football team, is captain of the rugby squad. He plans to join the rugby club at Ball State.
“I needed something to do,” Davis said. “Football, I’ve played for 12 years, so basically my whole life centered around football. As soon as that was done, I had too way much free time, so I had to get out and hit some people on the rugby pitch.”
Columbus’ Sam Mormino looks to lateral the ball April 19 at Carmel.
Submitted photo
Sam Mormino, a running back in football, is going to Louisville to major in sports management and be a manager for the football team.
“We’re all really competitive, and some of us aren’t going to play a sport (in college), and this was our last chance of having a little fun,” Mormino said. “Then, there’s a couple of us like Evan for wrestling and Jackson for football that just wanted to get better for those sports and get more contact an get stronger.”
Although the rugby team is open to players players from all Columbus high schools, it is made up mostly of students North, with only one player from East and a couple from CSA-New Tech.
“We’re the only team that we’ve seen all year that 100 percent of the team has never played a single game before,” Davis said. “So I think winning some of those games early and competing this well now against well-established programs, I’d say it’s a pretty successful season, even if we aren’t winning.”
Columbus rugby players line up for a scrum against Zionsville May 10 at Zionsville.
Submitted photo
Columbus opened the season with blowout wins against North Central and Carmel, but have since fallen to 2-6. Two of the losses have come against No. 2-ranked Avon and top-ranked Zionsville. The team closed the regular season Wednesday with a 19-17 home loss to City Rugby, a collection of players from Cathedral, Bishop Chatard and Indianapolis Tech.
While only the top four teams in the state will compete for the state title, the rest can compete in the Challenge Cup. Columbus will open Challenge Cup play against Carmel at 2 p.m. Saturday at McCullough’s Run Park.
“The record isn’t great, but we’re having a lot of fun and trying our hearts out,” Mormino said. “Overall, I think, we all can be very happy about ourselves and say that we played every game with a lot of heart and had a lot of fun.”
“We got off to a quick start and then lost a couple of tough ones,” Morrill added. “We’ve had a couple of really close games where I think our experience got the best of us. We’ve had some surprising success and some close ones, too. It’s been a lot of fun to watch these guys develop, learn the sport and play it with character and also with heart. The great thing has been, these guys have never stopped trying, they never stop working. They surprise me every time. We kind of set out a list of things we want to get better at, and each week, they’re checking things off the list.”
The Columbus Rugby Club offers Rookie Rugby, fifth and sixth grade co-ed tackle and men’s senior programs. The boys high school program is back this year for the first time since 2018.
“We have a lot of freshmen,” Jackson Haston said. “We only have about four or five seniors, and even those seniors aren’t as experienced in this new sport. I think when you have a group of old guys trying to teach some young guys who have never played before, it’s a little difficult. I’m excited to see what happens next year with some of these young guys coming up and getting better because the record definitely doesn’t show how much work these guys are putting in.”
“Maybe five years down the line, they’re being successful, and we get to say we were a part of that first group that restarted the tradition,” Saevre added.
