After a long fall sprinkled with losses, St. Bonaventure won games against Notre Dame College and Buffalo in November, and then capped off their fall with a 19-17 victory over MAC Runner-up Western Michigan in the ACRC Bowl Series.

The game itself was a physical battle, and neither team was able to get over the line early on. Western had much of the possession in the first 20 minutes, but were stuck in their own 22, and had all sorts of trouble getting out. Their kicking was not prodigious, and the Bonnies defense solid enough. But eventually WMU got some penalties, worked their way downfield and set up outside center Eric Williams for a powerful run through the defense for a try.

St. Bonaventure made some breaks after that but it took them almost until halftime to punch it in. They tried to maul it over but WMU's strategy was to use only one defender to sack the ballcarrier before other defenders joined in to make it a maul. That worked well, but eventually Tyler Flynn was part of the forward shove for the game-tying try.

Bonnies worked their forwards in on the attack more and more, with props Luis Carpio and Kyle Ciquera the major ground-gainers. Carpio went over for a try, to make it 12-5, and then WMU replied - flyhalf Tom Kacor tyring to push the pace, and No. 8 Simba Chirara making ground. On a poor St. Bonaventure kick fullback Ryan Loupee scythed through the few defenders chasing, and then found Williams on the outside, and he thundered down the sideline to make it 12-10.

With 20 minutes to go, it was the other prop, Ciguera, who finished it off. He came on a crash ball in the backline, pushed off a couple of tacklers, dragged a few more over the line, and wrestled himself down to touch down. That made it, with the conversion, 19-10.

So WMU replied, once again it was Williams who broke through. The conversion was good and it was 19-17. There was still time to play, and Western launched attack after attack. But the smaller Bonnies team somehow held on.

Ciquera was brutal all day, used to push back a very big WMU defensive line, and he didn’t back down, playing the entire game. The prop noted that new Bonnies coach, Tui Osborne, had already made an impact.

“Tui put in a game plan from the last two weeks which worked really well,” said Ciquera. “I think we bought into it.”

St. Bonaventure, as had been documented, has played, and lost to, many top teams because they play in the Rugby East. As a result, they’re not afraid of much.

“The whole team takes pride in not backing down,” said the freshman Bishop Hendricken product. “We play everyone tough and we want to make them sore the next day. Overall we’ve progressed from day one; we keep getting better every day. We know we can build on this.”

See the whole WMU v St. Bonaventure game here: https://youtu.be/gyXiX2qmtW0?t=17m13s