UCF co-captain Cortney Kuehl / Photos: Meredith Nelson, MEAN Photography
It’s Wednesday afternoon, and Central Florida co-captain Cortney Kuehl fits in a quick phone call to talk about the upcoming DI Spring College Championship. She, along with six other seniors graduating this semester, are finishing up finals in a mad dash to California. In one sense, Kuehl is lucky. UCF holds multiple graduations, and its Class of 2018 rugby players arranged it so they could walk in Thursday’s 2:30 p.m. ceremony. They also arranged an early departure so they could board a plane for California and ready for Friday’s spring semifinal against UC Davis.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Kuehl said.
You get the feeling that she’s not joking. I haven’t met Kuehl face to face, but I have seen her play live – in Las Vegas with the Florida High Performance Program and during last year’s DI Spring College Championship. We laugh as she confesses to loving stress – or rather, the adrenaline that comes along with pushing through a challenge, so long as that struggle is experienced in the sport of rugby. Because she loves it, and that fact pops during a 20-minute conversation.
Kuehl, fellow senior co-captain Julia Phillips, and the rest of the veterans spent the fall not only indoctrinating a big class of newcomers – UCF graduated 14 players last year – but also finding a way to hook them emotionally. The spring season introduced more game time, but it wasn’t quite enough, as the DI Florida league resumed its four-team shape.
“It’s hard to learn the game if you can’t play,” Kuehl emphasized. “You can practice all you want, but you don’t know what a ruck is until you get tackled and get destroyed [for a mistake].”
Some of those revelations occurred at the Savannah St. Patrick’s Day Tournament, where UCF accessed better competition, including Virginia Tech. The Knights defeated the Hokies 19-0 in the final and were grateful for the experience.
“That was our toughest game up until that point in the season. We were beating everyone else by 90 points [in Florida], and then to have a team say, ‘No, no, no,’ to us – that showed us what we had to work for,” Kuehl said. “I was really excited to see us grow from that kind of team.”
Fortuitously, UCF was able to gauge its progress a month later, as Virginia Tech emerged as the Knights’ opponent in the DI Spring College Round of 16.
“We had an idea of how they would play us, so we worked on little things – the ruck breakdown, push-up defense. But I wasn’t a fan of having a whole month off between games, because we couldn’t implement anything,” Kuehl said of the preparation.
“They came back so much harder than the first time,” Kuehl relished in the memory. “I just remember thinking, ‘This is such a fun game.’ It’s great to push and see people being pushed. I really enjoy that.”
The teams traded scores and the lead, and it wasn’t until the 60th minute that UCF got out in front permanently. But Virginia Tech was eager in the chase, and as the stats reinforce, fought back to within eight points, 41-33, in the final stretch. In the end, UCF had the gas to seal a 55-38 win, which guaranteed a berth to Fullerton, Calif., the final phase of playoffs.
“That game we had a lot better connection within our team,” Kuehl spoke to difference-makers. “In other games, the back and forwards were working individually, or you could see some people pushing hard and others holding back. But we finally got connected, and you could tell we were all mentally in it.”
On the other side of the bracket, Life defeated Pittsburgh 133-0, setting up a spring quarterfinal between the DI Elite Running Eagles and Central Florida.
“They’re such a great team, they have a great coach – they have so many great things going for them. Any time we get the opportunity to play Life, we know it’s going to be the hardest game we’re going to play,” Kuehl said of spring quarterfinal. “If anything, I want them to remember us. ‘Holy crap, that club team that barely practices two times a week knows how to play rugby.’”
Life won 100-0, but again Kuehl extolled the incremental improvements she saw in her teammates while the game evolved. It also helped that UCF already knew it was moving onto the next round of playoffs, and then the situation became that much sweeter when the team’s spring semifinal opponent was announced: UC Davis.
“I’ve been wanting redemption against UC Davis since last year. It was such a good game and I love playing at a higher level. I love the challenge, regardless of how the game ends,” Kuehl said of last year’s 36-24 outcome. “But it was a tough loss. We had them for about 75% of the game and then gave up on ourselves and let them win.”
Kuehl didn’t go so far as to say the loss haunted the team. For one, UCF got some redemption on day two and defeated Stanford to finish third at the spring championship. Secondly, the experience helped the team learn about limits, and what’s just beyond them.
“We’ve embraced the motto, ‘Three feet deeper,’” Kuehl explained how UCF coach Raoul Besse refocused last year’s lessons.
The phrase is a reference to R.U. Darby’s story that features in Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich.” Darby and his uncle head to Colorado during the Gold Rush, and once their drilling exploits grow dim, they sell the land and machinery to recoup losses. The new owner keeps digging, and three feet later strikes gold. And thus, an idiom for perseverance is perfectly applied to UCF’s mindset this year.
“I have a tendency to get really excited – I don’t get nervous. And I don’t really care about the result if I’m playing the sport at a high level. But obviously, I want to win, and the whole team has been training to do the best we can,” Kuehl said. “I’m excited to play Davis, because they’re a great team. … And we’re in the same the boat with graduations [from last year’s teams], so I’m excited to see what they bring to the table and to compare turn-arounds.”
Kuehl’s closest thing to a non-positive sentiment related to the bittersweet aspect of the trip to Fullerton. It is the seniors’ final outing with UCF, and while Kuehl knows her rugby career will continue on (watch for news of the Chula Vista 7s showcase and potential alignment, alongside Phillips, with Atlanta in the fall), it’s the last chance to strike gold in college.
#UCF #2018SpringPlayoffs