LEBANON, Ill. – The men's rugby team ties University of Illinois 26-26 on Saturday September 28^th.

"Illinois are a strong program and have been a ranked program in D1A for many years. So, it was a great test for us to host them for the "Battle of Illinois" trophy. We started really slowly, which unfortunately has been pretty standard for us the past two matches and as we also lost out two starting Props early in the game it was a tough ask to dig ourselves out of the 14-point deficit. But our players showed plenty of grit, and we were able to find out shape and structure and take the game out to a 26-14 lead with five minutes to go but unfortunately, we made some critical errors late in the game and to the Fighting Illini's credit they fired back with two late tries to tie the match. We will go back to the drawing board and hopefully tighten things up a little before our first conference match against Adrian College on the 12^th of October," said head coach Cameron Wyper.

Of the four tries scored on the day, two of them belonged to Guillem Marine. Tyler McVey and Rufus Doran each tacked one try and Ethan Edwards had three conversions.

This week's player of the match was Lachlan King.

The Bearcats travel to Adrian, Michicgan for their first conference match Saturday October 12th versus Adrian College. Game time is 11:00 a.m.