{"id":3515,"date":"2015-02-16T20:07:43","date_gmt":"2015-02-16T20:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2015\/02\/16\/furman-upends-south-carolina-22-14\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T14:46:22","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T18:46:22","slug":"furman-upends-south-carolina-22-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/furman-upends-south-carolina-22-14\/","title":{"rendered":"Furman upends South Carolina 22-14"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo courtesy of Deborah Miller.<\/p><\/div>\n

Furman used a strong offense and the wind to build a three-try halftime lead Saturday that was strong enough to carry the day in a 22-14 win over the University of South Carolina.<\/p>\n

The victory is Furman\u2019s third consecutive against a Division I team. The contest pitted the champions of the Division II Southern Rugby Conference against the winners of the DI Southeastern Conference. The game, played under blustery conditions at Roberts Field, was a contest of field position.<\/p>\n

Electing to play with the wind to their back in the first half, freshman flanker RJ Bradley put the Paladins ahead with pick off a goal line ruck near the nine minute mark. Sophomore Jacob Milchuck added the conversion. Five minutes later, Milchuck added a penalty kick to put Furman ahead 10-0.<\/p>\n

Near the 32 minute mark, the Paladins struck again when sophomore prop Jeff Tonge bullied in a try on a set penalty play to build Furman\u2019s lead to 15-0 going into the break.<\/p>\n

The Gamecocks, who have a penchant for rallying, came out strong against Furman in the second 40. Playing with a stiff wind at their back, USC scored a try and conversion near the 50 minute mark to cut Furman\u2019s lead to 15-7.<\/p>\n

Just three minutes later, though, sophomore 8-main Patrick Musau sliced through several Gamecock defenders on a 20-meter dash that put the Paladins back in charge 7-22. The Gamecocks scored again with 12 minutes remaining to shrink Furman\u2019s lead to 14-22.<\/p>\n

USC had several scoring opportunities but were undone by their own mistakes and a hard-hitting Paladin defense that was determined to win the day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took better of advantage of the wind than they did and I think that won the day,\u201d said Furman Coach John Roberts. \u201cWe played well on offense in the first half and good defense in the second.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roberts, a University of South Carolina alumni and former club president for Gamecock rugby, said he was grateful for the opportunity to host a top 25 D1 team.<\/p>\n

\u201cUSC has a tremendous program and I have watched them with great pride as Mark (USC Coach Mark Morris) has constructed a winning tradition there,\u201d said Roberts. \u201cI know they were down a few starters. We look forward to returning the favor next year with a game in Columbia.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Furman used a strong offense and the wind to build a three-try halftime lead Saturday that was strong enough to carry the day in a 22-14 win over the University […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":14396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-rugby"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}