Mount St. Mary's rode a strong first half to defeat Davenport 29-14 Saturday in Cleveland, Ohio.
The teams met in a neutral site at St. Edward HS, and they enjoyed good weather, if a little breezy. The wind, in fact, did seem to have some influence over this game.
The match began with Mount on the front foot and an early penalty led to center Evan Corbett slotting an impressive kick from about 40 meters.
Both sides looked to use the kick to gain territory but in the first half Mount St. Mary's won that battle. A superb 50-22 from Bastian Brunello set them up for a maul that took a while to get where it needed to go, but led to hooker Hayden McKay scoring. Corbett converted for a 10-0 lead.
Mount scored a second time off a scrum in the middle of the field. They ran a looping move and put Brunello (playing fullback) free on the left side. He drew the cover defense and passed to wing Xavier Lock over. Conversion good again and Mount seemed in control at 17-0.
This was a fairly young MSM side with a few freshmen on the starting 15, and they looked to try to win the physical battle. Davenport, meanwhile, was desperate to get the ball back and were a little impatient to do so at times.
The result was a few pushes and shoves after the ball. Referee Matt Lake later chalked it all up to first-game enthusiasm, but he did sin-bin two players (one from each team) for an altercation.
Burnello was able to execute another 50-22, this time under some pressure on the kick. It was a well-executed piece of skill but Mount was not able to score from there. Davenport cleared, only to give away a penalty. Corbett's long-range attempt was wide, but Davenport still couldn't get out of trouble. A silly penalty—tackling a player in the air—led to a quick tap by Mount anf the ball sent quickly to flanker Fintan Hughes, who dotted down in the corner.
Corbett hit from the touchline and it was 24-0.
Overall, Mount was kicking well and executing some key poaches. Their lineout and maul were solid and they didn't make a lot of mistakes. The Davenport players were annoyed at being starved of scoring chances and they pressed a bit too much as a result.
As the first half came to a close Mount got one more penalty. They took the lineout, mauled it, and McKay popped off the back to score a nicely-taken try in the corner. That made it 29-0 at halftime.
