The Towson Rugby Club hosted its 35th annual alumni games Saturday afternoon on Burdick Field. The alumni games are the club’s way of celebrating the ending of their Spring season, where they finished with a record of 13-2.

The day consisted of three games: men’s A-side against recent alumni (the main event), women’s team against women’s alumni and men’s B-side against the older alumni.

The alumni came out with a chip on their shoulder, Rugby Club president Colby Buss said after the alumni defeated the A-side 31-14.

“A lot of the alumni didn’t actually go to their game this weekend because we beat them last year,” Buss said, “So they came back with a vengeance.”

Although the A-side was able to start off the scoring with a try early in the first half, the alumni were able to battle back and dominate most of the game.

“Those guys are good rugby players,” head coach Don Stone said of the alumni. “But I would almost want to play another team on our last game of the year.”

The A-side wanted to win, but the ultimate goal was for the players to remain healthy so the team can go into next Fall with all the momentum from their 13-2 spring. Though the game is supposed to be friendly, the alumni couldn’t help but go out and compete as physically as possible, especially having lost last year’s alumni game, Stone said.

“I have some trepidation because our season’s over,” Stone said. “Then we are going to go out and play the alumni, they’re going to be really fired up to say we’re the best. Now they’re 28, 29 years old, they’re men. I selfishly don’t want the guys to get hurt.”

Last Fall season was tough for the club when they suffered a few one point defeats, but the Tigers came out in the spring and ran through most of their competition. Their only losses were at the hands of Navy and West Virginia, two highly regarded programs.

At the Rocky Gorge Tournament in mid-April, the Tigers swept George Washington, Frostburg and Salisbury. They put up 105 points in the three games.

Last weekend the team won the Rights of Spring Tournament held at Bocek Park in Baltimore. They outscored their opponents 192-22 in five games.

Coming out of the alumni game with no major injuries, Buss said the club looks to compete at a much higher level next fall, and plans on sweeping their division opponents in the Potomac Rugby Union.

“We plan on going to the national tournament in the fall,” Buss said. “Based on our momentum from the spring, we should beat everybody in our division based on skill, talent and players on the team.”

The club only started three seniors in the tournaments this spring. With the majority of the players returning in the fall, Stone said he feels that next fall will be a special one.