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Show 1 .1 "' ' ' " Cf '.j by Jim Murray Mflnnjraiy qpim pairttg Page Bl Thursday, May 7, 1981 Muckers tie Boulder in soggy opener How does that go? A tie is Reid gave the team excellent like kissing your sister? field position with a well- The Park City Rugby Club placed punt, and the Muck-opened Muck-opened its 1981 season Sun- ers came within inches of the day by battling Boulder to a 9-9 tie. It would have been nice to win, agreed Mucker President Presi-dent Dave Sundquist, but it sure felt a lot better than last year's opening game, a 24-4 pummeling at the hands of Utah State University. "We all felt pretty good about it," he said. The scoring hero for the Muckers was Bruce Reid, who hit three out of three penalty kicks to give the team all its points. As a matter of fact, all of Boulder's Bould-er's points came the same way, via the penalty kick. The game, originally scheduled for Ballif Field at the University of Utah, was moved to Westminster College Col-lege to take advantage of better field conditions. "It would be nice if we could get our field that good," .jSundqulsisaidJdstfully. However, the move to-Westminster to-Westminster didn't get the players out of a cold drizzle, which began the night before and continued for most of the first half of the game. There was a small lake on the sidelines, and players on both sides had trouble handling hand-ling the ball. But the playing surface remained in good shape. About 30 loyal fans, armed with raincoats and umbrellas, um-brellas, shouted encouragement encourage-ment from the sidelines as the teams battled through most of the first half without scoring a point. "Fall on it. Fall on the ball," a Boulder supporter was heard to shout at one point. "That's easy for you to say," replied a soggy Boulder Bould-er forward. "Good point," said another spectator. With about five minutes left in the first half, Reid put the Muckers on the scoreboard score-board with a kick from a sharp angle near the right sidelines. The ball was right on target, clearing the crossbar cross-bar with plenty of room to spare. Boulder tied the score with a penalty kick early in the second half, then kept the pressure on. The huge Boulder Bould-er forwards (there were four or five the size of Bill Hart) gave their team a decided advantage in the scrums. "Probably, as a scram, they outweighed us by about 200 pounds," Sundquist said. The visitors came within a hair of scoring a try early in the second half when a halfback crossed the goal line but was hammered by two Muckers before he could touch the ball down. "That would have been a score had we been playing football," Sundquist observed. A few minutes later, Boulder was knocking on the door again, only yards away from the Park City goal line. But again the Muckers were up to the challenge. "They spend five minutes on our five-yard line and got at least five chances," Sundquist Sund-quist said. "That would have been a real easy time to roll over and let them in. We said, 'No way!'" However, Boulder's persistence per-sistence finally paid off as a penalty kick gave them a 6-3 lead midway through the second half. Then it was Park City's turn to apply the pressure. Boulder goal line before opportunity, in the form of a wet ball, slipped away. But Reid's toe brought the team back into contention. He just cleared the crossbar with a long penalty kick from the left sideline to tie the score, then put the Muckers ahead 9-6 with another kick, this one from directly in front of the posts. In spite of his success, Reid complained later that the playing conditions had a numbing effect on his kicking kick-ing foot, 'i was drilling them before the game. But after running up and down the field for 75 minutes, with your feet soaking in cold water...'" Much of the action in the second half focused around the lineouts, where the ball is thrown in from the sidelines. Since weight is no advantage . in . this situation, Boulder resorted to other tactics. Park City forward Bill Hart, a key man for the Muckers in the lineouts, discovered that his left arm was being hooked by his Boulder counterpart coun-terpart every time he went up for the ball. Adding insult to injury was Boulder's choice of signals for calling the plays in the lineouts. (As in football, rugby teams use audible signals to tell their own players where the ball is to be thrown.) Instead of using numbers, Boulder was using the names of prominent universities to key their attack. That tech- J' v 'I IT I I ' V - - 'n nique drew little reaction from the Park City side until late in the game, when a Boulder forward called out "Ohio State White..." This brought a chorus of boos from the Muckers, several of whom have Michigan ties. "Go Blue," Hart was heard to murmur as Boulder got ready to put the ball in play. Hart played football at the University of Michigan, a bitter rival of Ohio State. With about two minutes left to play, Boulder added the game's final points with a penalty kick from the left sidelines. Although the game was the first of the season for Park City, it was the 10th for the visitors. However, Boulder had the misfortune of playing play-ing Salt Lake City's tough Dead Goat side (and losing 15-6) the day before, then going out on the town that night. "They were tired, and they were drunk," one Boulder fan observed. A seven-man side representing repre-senting the Muckers will be in Idaho Falls this weekend competing in a "sevens" tournament. Above: "Ah, so that's what this guy meant when he call himself a hooker ! " Mucker Bill Hart discovered that this Boulder forward was willing to bend the rules to make sure he didn't get the ball. Below: Scrum half Rick Phaler, showing a reckless disregard for his own once-clean uniform, uni-form, throws the ball to one of the Mucker backs. V - . f " St ' -.A A. Jk ' . . -4s. 7 i IS " . ; if I , I - C1! . , ... ' Going where the wind goes Ever get this wild, uncontrollable urge to spend a gay, carefree, fun-filled weekend in Jamestown, N.D.? Taste the forbidden pleasures of wicked Stutsman County? Well, the jets don't land at the international airport there. The trains only carry cows. Greyhound will only drop you at the nearest crossing, and it's only open on weekdays. Club Metiterranee doesn't have it on its list of resorts, although it's centrally located. Bismarck is just down the road. It's fairly crime-free, although someone's renting guns to the white people. No, the best way to get to Jamestown, unless you've got a covered wagon or a ticket on the overnight stage from Fargo, is the noon balloon from L.A. That's what Rocky Aoki and Ben Abruzzo figured after af-ter a study of the timetable. It was either that or parachute. The only way to go L.A.-to-Jamestown nonstop was balloon. Jules Verne would have been proud of them. Actually, Rocky and Ben weren't taking dead aim on Jamestown. When they got aloft over Orange County, Calif., they would have taken any direction. You see, they were trying to set the world record for free ballooning, not for time, but for distance. This is a somewhat murky record which the encyclopedias en-cyclopedias like to think was set by one "H. Berliner" in 1914, when he soared from Germany Ger-many to the Ural Mountains of Russia, but balloonists seem to think it was set in 1941 by two Russians from Siberia, presumably hoping they would come down over Paris instead in-stead of Irkutsk. Abruzzo, the modern Phileas Fogg, was one of the men who ballooned across the Atlantic to France not long ago, but this was the first time he had ever been to Jamestown. Aoiki, who owns the Benihana chain of restaurants, was attempting to publicize that business, but. the.-e is an unconfirmed rumor that when he landed, he ordered a Big Mac. Sushi is in limited supply in Jamestown, but the pem-mican pem-mican is good. The beauty of balloon travel is, your destination is not preordained. You go where the winds go. This is why the Good Ship Benihana was bouncing along the bad lands of f the Dakotas this week and not the runways of -O'Hare. : The free balloon distance trophy was : established by the mad cap newspaper "-publisher "-publisher James Gordon Bennett in 1906. : Bennett, who was most famous for having sent Stanley to look for Dr. Livingstone, I presume, in darkest Africa, was fascinated by the thought of soaring aloft in the dark. Ballooning is as old as America. The mont-golfier mont-golfier brothers of France put a balloon 1,000 feet in the air as far back as 1783, by burning straw underneath a 37-foot cloth bag. The existence of the stratosphere itself was discovered by an instrumented balloon flight in this century. Ballooning is almost the fastest growing sport in the United States at this time, percentage percen-tage wise. Light-than-air travel was unknown in nature except for blowing leaves when the Montgolfiers began their experimentation, experimen-tation, but today the desert and mountains of California look like a Jules Verne fantasy on a windy summer's day. : Rocky Aoiki got into ballooning after his last power boat ride. When you set out in a boat and hit three parked cars, Rocky figures they're trying to tell you something. He broke both legs, broke his arm in four places, lost his spleen and gall bladder, and tore a hole in his heart. When he got out of the hospital four months later, he bought a balloon. Rocky 's not going to save it just for the Jamestown run. Rocky hopes to fly one day-from day-from Japan to California in one. That wayj when he lands, he might get to see Bob Hope, and not just two Indians selling blankets: Someday, of course, when ballooning gets even more popular, Rocky hopes to offer a movie andor shrimp chopped right up on your seat table on the noon hop to Jamestown." Maybe you can get the excursion fare if you go night coach and promise to stay two weeks." Which you'll need there anyway if you're going to take in all the sights. v i 1981 , Los Angeles Times Prospector Athletic Club 649-6670 $100.00 Initiation (Includes Single, Couple, Family) Plus monthly dues "Summer Only" Memberships Now on Sale (good April 1 - November 1) Includes all Racquetball & Tennis Court time (plus all other club facilities) Come in for a Personal Tour and receive 1 Free Guest Pass!! ALPINE LANDSCAPING THESODFATHER GUARANTEES... the best deals to be found in town. An offer like this can't be refused. He has the best service and equipment to deal with any job and can handle all your landscaping needs. Landscaping design & planning. Total installation from grass seeding to trees. Sprinkler system designs, installations and maintenance. Tractor & Backhoe work. Rock & Tie Wall Installation. HANK VERRONE The Sodfather 2 745 Quaking Aspen Court, Park City, Utah 84060 CAM |