The Penn State men's rugby team played the kind of game that it wanted to play for a full 20 minutes on Friday.

Unfortunately for the Ruggers, it was in the second half of a game in which they trailed, 34-25.

The No. 3 Ruggers scored 10 points in the second half, the same amount as their opponent No. 8 Brigham Young, in the Round of 16 of the rugby championships.

The game ended with the Ruggers losing 35-44 to BYU at Colorado Springs, Colo.

"We basically beat ourselves in that game," junior Mike Petri said. "By being down by so much, it made it even more difficult to get back in the game."

Coming into the game the Ruggers were the No. 1 seed from the Mid-Atlantic region and they were playing the No. 4 team out of the Pacific region.

Penn State captain Timmy Ryland warned his team before the game that the rankings at this point of the season meant nothing.

"All of the teams are good," Ryland said before the game. "Any team can beat any team."

Petri said that it was penalties that ultimately did in the Ruggers.

"Our problem was that we made a lot of stupid penalties," Petri said. "We've got to hand it to them for capitalizing."

Penn State is known for being a fast team that makes most of its plays out wide but that was not enough against the physical play of the bigger players for BYU.

The biggest problem was Cougar fly-half Pate Tuilevuka who, at 6-foot-4 and 235 pounds, plowed through the Penn State line, carrying several players for a try.

"They had a tremendous size advantage over us in the game," Petri said. "They really stepped up their physicality."

With the loss the Ruggers went to the consolation bracket where they faced No. 17 Clemson, who had lost to Army the day before.

Earlier in the season, the Ruggers beat Army in Holuba Hall and were hoping to see that team again in the Round of Eight.

But losing meant that Clemson would be the team against whom the Ruggers finished off their season.

Going into the game feeling that they had something to prove, the Ruggers came out slowly in the first half in their game Saturday.

The Ruggers dominated the second half of that game, though, shutting out the Tigers and coming away with the win, 46-26.

The Ruggers' backline was the dif-ference in the game, exploiting Clemson's defense throughout the second half.

"After that poor first half everything just seemed to click," Petri said.

That half proved to be the last half of collegiate play for many of the seniors on this team, as the rest of the team did not want to go out with a loss.

"Halftime of that game we got some inspirational words from our coaches and the seniors," Petri said. "We wanted to win it for them."