The University of Minnesota-Duluth Fighting Penguins are now double champions, as they took the national DII 7s championships on Sunday.

UMD got by Wisconsin-Whitewater early Saturday morning 17-7 in the semis. The teams were told late Saturday night that the semis were moved up two hours due to expected bad weather. It was a tough adjustment for all teams involved, but perhaps a little tougher for UWW, as they didn’t actually see the notice of the change until Sunday morning.

Certainly Duluth started better than Whitewater in the semi, and Duluth went on to beat St. Louis University soundly 31-5.

“This tournament was similar to the fall,” said UMD Head Coach Jeramy Katchuba, referring to the 15s championship run. “We put some plans in, and the boys really executed well. The boys played better defense and showed a higher work rate than they had all spring, so while I thought we could be among the top four, I was a little surprised at how well we played overall.”

Zach Schwartz scored all three tries against Whitewater, and his overall solid play earned him the MVP award.

“He doesn’t necessarily look the part,” said Katchuba, “but he has a lot of skills. We did some great things on the field. He’s the X factor for us. I figured if he played well we’d do pretty well, and he did and we did.”

But it was a solid overall performance from Duluth. 

Nem Nyangaresi started to show flashes of his potential. Leaders Trace Bolstad and Matt Martin continued to challenge defenses. Luc Desroches was as tough to bring down as anyone - he’s not the biggest forward, but he is a handful.

“Luc punches above his weight,” said Katchuba. “He’s a hard runner and aggressive on defense. He and Andy Buntrock were a big part of our effort. I told them, ‘we need you guys to focus on a couple of things, running hard and getting to the breakdowns’ and they did that all weekend.”

But the key, in the end, was defense. 

“Our defense was smothering,” said Katchuba. “We did a good job of plugging the holes and brings the runners to the ground. The guys stepped up. We get a reputation for being a bruising, battering team, but we have some skill and I think we demonstrated that.”

For Duluth, it’s another national championship. The school has won three national championships in men’s sports - two in DII football and one in hockey - and now has won three men’s rugby championships in the space of 18 months (two in 15s and one in 7s). But that success hasn’t translated into more support for the rugby program.

But that doesn’t change the fact that this team continues to win big games - championship games.