Grand Valley State University capped off their Great Lakes Conference season with a 44-27 victory over Xavier of Cincinnati to win the GLC title.

In a game played at the Moose Rugby Grounds in Elkhart, Ind., Xavier took an early lead in the game but Grand Valley stormed back and built a commanding lead, 34-10. Xavier stormed back and were within a try, 34-27, with 12 minute to do. Twice they got down to the tryline and ran a long period of phases inside the five-meter. Twice Grand Valley beat them back. For their pains, Grand Valley got a yellow card for killing the ball, but got out of the predicament, countered, and scored two late tries.

GVSU Head Coach John Mullett called his team's two late tries "fortuitous" and praised Xavier for their tenacity.

"There's not much to be learned about these teams from this game other than that they both play hard regardless of situation," said Mullett. "At times it was not so pretty - lots of grinding it out, then giving way to unexpected open-field flourishes by both teams."

The physicality of the game led to some unstructured play, especially around the breakdowns, and the game was certainly in doubt until the final few minutes.

It was a bit of a heartbreaker for Xavier, which had played so well this fall. But they had all sorts of problems stopping Grand Valley in the second half of the first period. Smart adjustments at halftime brought Xavier back, an effort Mullett described as "heroic."

But then Grand Valley's depth showed, as they were able to bring in effective subs to finish out the game.

Grand Valley also ran into problems when captain Patrick Hart went out early with an injury. Jared Preston, who has also captained the team before he broke his collarbone, filled in admirable in his first game back.

"Jared was obviously our best player Saturday," Mullett said of the flanker. Mullett started six freshmen in the game, and one of them, Ben Serra, had a blinder, fielding kicks, running through traffic, and scoring three tries.