Las Vegas, NM (By Dick Greene) - In front of a large and fun audience, NSCRO’s current 7s National Champion, the NMHU Vatos began their 20+ game 2015-16 season against in-state rival Division 1A University of New Mexico Lobos.

The match was played in Perkin Stadium on the campus of New Mexico Highlands University. The Vatos also had a solid 15s season last year losing in the NSCRO PacWest Regional. The Vatos “A”side outran the Lobos 50-15, with the “B” side also prevailing 38-12. This brings the NMHU 22-year old record with UNM to 18-4.  UNM was the 2014-15 Rio Grande Union College Champion over UTEP, New Mexico State and New Mexico Tech.  NSCRO clubs while small in enrollment can play with the large schools. This has been proven a few times recently (Cal  Maritime beat D1 San Diego State and St. Edward’s beat D1 University of Texas). NMHU has less than 800 full time male undergraduates, while UNM has nearly 8,000.

Player-Coach Kevon Williams cited the need to improve overall ball retention and better tenacity from his forwards. “It was a good start to the season with a solid win over a much bigger D1 school that played and tackled well. Nevertheless, the Vatos must improve their fitness and game intelligence to remain a NSCRO champion. We could be a very good team”, noted Williams. For his quiet and relentless power, Dan Wagner from Houston was the Vatos Man of the Match.

Having graduated four solid rugby men and good citizens, the 30 member Vatos are returning the majority of their student athletes as they again attempt to win small college national titles both in the universal and Olympic games of 15 players (strength and endurance) and 7 players (speed and quickness). Kevon Williams, who is an All American and Olympic rugby hopeful, will lead the team along with Captain Eric Sykes and President Ray Henley. Fellow All-American Jeremy Misailegala, regional All Star Celester Asuega and the mercurial gentleman, DiAmaal Holmes, will run into the space created by hard working forwards like Juan Bravo, Daniel Wagner, Earl Woods, and Jose Cervantes. Senior, and professional bull rider, Rydell Curtis from the Navajo Nation again will cleverly link the forwards and backs to find the best pathways to the goal line - the point of this popular game of elegant violence and sportsmanship with millions of players worldwide.

As the Vatos have no fiscal and training field support at NMHU, they thank West Las Vegas City Schools for use of the WLV High School Football Stadium from 6AM to 8AM on Tuesdays and Thursdays. All new student-athletes are welcome to join this historical, highly successful, and self-supporting team.  This team prides itself as much on its graduation rate as it does on its national caliber play.