SUNY Oswego defeated top-seeded SUNY Cortland 37-12 Sunday in the final of the Upstate NY Men’s DII league.

That game finalized the 16 teams in the USA Rugby National Playoffs.

Playing on a snowy, muddy pitch at the SUNY Oswego campus, both teams won their semifinals on Saturday, with Cortland dominating Niagara 20-3 and Oswego edging Buffalo State 19-12.

On Sunday, Cortland ran into three things that caused them problems - penalties, a fired-up opponent, and a specific defensive game plan designed to negate their strengths.

“We learned a lot the first time we played them and lost,” said Oswego club president and 9unfortunately injured) backs captain Tim Kimmel. “We saw they used their forwards out on the wing, so we put our loosies out there to take care of them. We went after them there and they had trouble scoring because of that.”

With prop forward Kyle Kelly powering through Cortland tacklers - “he’s tough forward who also plays like a back,” said Kimmel - and with No. 8 Kevin Burke asking questions of their defense and scrumhalf Steve Vertucci working hard on both sides of the ball, Oswego ran out to a 24-0 lead at halftime, and cruised from there.

“We didn’t know what kind of team we had going into this season, but after the first few games, we knew we had a playoff-caliber team,” said Kimmel. “This game we controlled possession and used our forwards, but it was also good to see our backs gets us a lot of points. We were all really fired up.”

Oswego now faces Vermont in the first round of the DII playoffs.

See all of the Round of 16 matchups here:
http://www.goffrugbyreport.com/college-men/men-dii-brackets-set