The football team has its very own field at Scott Stadium, the soccer teams and lacrosse teams share Klöckner Stadium and the baseball team plays at Davenport Field. Club teams, however, often have to deal with less specialized facilities. The Virginia's men's club rugby team, for example, hosts its opponents in Mad Bowl.
It might not be the most glamorous of locations -- between Rugby Road and Madison Lane -- but the Mad Bowl field was renovated last year and now draws praise from members of the men's rugby team, which is 10-2 this season.
"They did a phenomenal job [renovating the field], and we now have one of the best fields on the East Coast," said club president Anthony Simasek, a junior who is Virginia's A-side fly half -- similar to a football team's starting quarterback.
Virginia's rugby program -- which has more than 50 players -- is split into three teams: A, B and C. In rugby, there are 15 players on the field at a time, and the most competitive team, the A-side, is comprised of 22 players.
"We have a bunch of rookies and a lot of guys who never played before, but also a lot of experienced veterans," freshman B-side fly half Chris Colliton said. "The A-side is comprised mostly of upperclassmen, with a bunch of second years and third years. The rookies comprise the B-team and ... the C-team [is] the more novice guys who are maybe learning the game."
All three teams practice together at Mad Bowl Tuesdays and Thursdays and at Lambeth Field Mondays and Wednesdays. Though the Cavaliers may not have crowded bleachers or a state-of-the-art stadium, they do have good fan support compared to their competition.
"Our support has been getting better and better," Simasek said. "We usually get anywhere from 300 to 500 fans per game, depending on the weather and what else might be going on that weekend. The U.Va. community has been very receptive to the rugby team, which we definitely appreciate."
The Cavaliers are members of the Virginia Rugby Union and the Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union. Some of the Cavaliers' opponents are varsity teams while others are technically club teams (like Virginia), but all VRU and MARFU members play Division I collegiate rugby.
The Cavaliers' (A-side) have been ranked in the top 25 teams nationwide by eRugbyNews.com throughout the spring season and also were recently crowned VRU state champions for the second year in a row. Last weekend, in the MARFU tournament, Virginia lost to Maryland in the quarterfinals.
The B-team has also been successful this season.
"Against each of the schools we play, there's always an A game and a B game," Colliton said. "We have one of the best B-sides around and we have never lost to an opponent's B-side. The only game we lost this season was against an A-side from JMU [James Madison University] in a tournament in North Carolina. Our A-side and B-side are always historically very strong."
The Cavaliers have performed well even without a head coach this year.
"This season we lost our coach for the fall and spring, and we were the only top 25 team to be coached by players," Simasek said. "Our two player coaches were Peter Benson and Zach Mote, and those guys, both fourth years, did an awesome job. To get us where they got us, without having a head coach, was a phenomenal feat on their part."
This weekend, the Cavaliers will travel to the Cherry Blossom Tournament just outside of Washington, D.C., to take on Temple, Virginia Tech and Georgetown.
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