On a beautiful fall Saturday afternoon with near perfect upstate New York weather, Old Blue  as a club turned out for the last fall game of the season with good numbers to face a determined Hudson Valley side for the MET NY DIII Championship and the #1 NorthEast DIII Seed position.  Much credit to the OB supporters, especially Super League and DII players not involved in the day's LAU select match, family and Old Boys who traveled to support the team.

OB started well in the first minutes with some great pod forward phases to set up the first try by Chris Wilkins. Wes Barbour who used his special Canadian duct tape tee to make it 7-0.

Not to be outdone and to crush any thought that OB would run away with the game, Hudson Valley (HV) replied with their own hard deserved try after some good hard running, that while defended well, let OB know they were not having a pushover game. Score 7-7 with 15 mins gone.

Play and possesion went back and forth for the remainder of the half with turnovers and penalties to both sides, until OB finally worked up another good try, finally moving the ball wide to space to go up 12-7. Good efforts by locks Bart Seemen and Jason Kovalcin backed up by Tim Furey and Jay Thomas in the forwards and passing by John Sarokhan and Barbour in the centers.

HV then brought the score back to 12-10 with a penalty after some undisciplined play in the rucks from OB, and repeated turnover of possesion in phase play, which would characterize the first half for OB.

HV continued to defend well but a determined OB pack finally took the lead back to 19-10 before the half when Wilkins had another determined driving run.

 

The second half saw improved play from OB with better ball retention by the tight forwards, Rob Mayers and Duncan Calender working hard in the rucks without infringing, and hard tackling by flankers Furey and Thomas (which resulted in him completely separating his shoulder). Quentin Unsworth came on for Thomas 10 mins into the half,   This replacement brought renewed OB momentum and OB started to dominate further keeping the ball in hand for repeated phases. Unsworth would continue on to have a blinder and earn MVP for the day with hard determined low running, great body position and good tackling. Renewed efforts by Paul Abrams, Kovalcin and John Amato also fired the OB pack back up and good decision making by Justin Goonan and direction from Wilkins let OB increase their lead to 26-10, with a good try by Barbour after more coordinated running and handling in the backs.

A HV penalty would bring the score back to 26-13 but this wasn't to last long as OB increased their lead to 31-13 with 20 mins to go. Italian Stalian Carlos Salustri then came in for Kovalcin who had a solid game at lock for the injured JP Connolly (who despite badly spraining his ankle still traveled and turned out willing to play). Gary Heavner replaced Mayers and put in some heavy diaphragm paralyzing smother tackles.

A bad kick allowed a determined HV to bring the score back to 31-20 with 10 minutes to play, renewing HVs spirits. HV continued to attack the OB line for a good 5 minutes, but was held out by solid tackling in the backs, led by an injured Wilkins.

OB then went on the attack for the remaining last minutes almost putting another try away but would be held out by an HV defense that wouldn't give up and played hard until the final whistle. Final score 31-20.

Coaches MVP was newcomer Quentin Unsworth.