History of the West Shore United Rugby Club
The West Shore United Rugby Club was founded in 2005 by current head coach Sean Robinson and the Harrisburg Rugby Club. Sean, a long term member of the Harrisburg Rugby Club, was teaching Physical Education at Cedar Cliff and Red Land High Schools in the West Shore School District. Some of his students knew that he played rugby and expressed an interest in getting a high school team started. Sean contacted his mates at the Harrisburg Rugby Club for organizational and financial support and the process was started. Sean also contacted Jim Hall from North Penn who offered great support in the early days of getting the club started.
The original concept for the team was to combine players from Red Land and Cedar Cliff High Schools to form one “United” team that would compete in the EPRU. Pretty soon Trinity High School was officially added to the United family when Coach Robinson’s next door neighbor, Sean Guyeski, asked if he and his friend Tyler Brown, both Juniors at Trinity, could join the team. Ian Eggleston, a Mechanicsburg High School senior also jumped on board and the first West Shore United Rugby team was ready to field a team. Cedar Cliff, Red Land, Trinity and Mechanicsburg are bitter rivals in many sports, so the thought of combining athletes from all of these schools on one team seemed to be a risky endeavor. Instead it ended up being an incredible experience for all involved.
In their inaugural season in 2005 United would finish with a perfect 7-0 record in the EPRU’s Division 3. They were promoted to Division 2 for the 2006 season where they would once again finish undefeated in the regular season and win the EPRU Division 2 West Championship. As a result of their success in the regular season, United was promoted to the EPRU Division 1 play-offs for a chance to move to the USA Rugby National Championships. United pulled off the unthinkable and went 3-0 in the EPRU play-offs to become the first team from EPRU Division 2 to ever win the EPRU Championship. United would go on to finish second in the Mid-Atlantic Final Four to qualify for a spot at the USA Rugby National Championships where they would finish in 7th place in Tier B and 15th in the Nation in only their second season in existence!
Pictured Left to Right
Front Row (Kneeling)
Jake Fink, Junior Rodriguez, Detwan Robinson, Scott Acri, Kris Caddy, Dustin Hicks,
Lee Hoover, Chris Tilley, Chris Shissler
Second Row (Hands on Shoulders)
Ryan Dill, Sean Guyeski, Drew Donadee, Aubrey Moore, Tyler Berrier, Jon Intrieri
Back Row (Standing)
Coach Dennis Shade, Patrick Kumpf, Kyle Hoover, Chandler Norman (obscured),
Nate Van Tassel, Coach Sean Robinson, Derrick Ott, Tyler Brown, Andrew Dill,
Mike Connolly, Andrew Steffen, Alumni Dan Bingaman
15th in the Nation
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