University of Northern Iowa may be famous for being the school that launched the career of former Eagle Paul Emerick, but it's not as if they're done playing rugby after that.

UNI, playing in the Northern Lights Conference, which covers Minnesota and a couple of other states, won their second game in a row this weekend, beating North Dakota State 72-33.

"I think we found a spark," said coach Ryan Gray. "We had some new talent show up and we were able to get them some time. We had a really good off-season with players working hard, and we were really excited about how our B-side players, too."

Senior flanker Wes Maass has been an emotional leader for UNI this season. But others have contributed, such as John Schwarte at fullback and senior flyhalf Chris Aguero.

Wing Ryan Brown got his first start and scored early. He was not expected to take charge of the game since he is so new, but "came up big," said Gray. "We are becoming comfortable with our style of play."

This is an enormously competitive league, with Minnesota-Duluth, who won a national championship last year, at the forefront. The Fighting Penguins hammered North Dakota 118-3 Saturday, and that's been standard operating procedure for UMD. Winona, who lost to UNI a week before, bounced back to beat Minnesota State-Mankato 29-17 (photo below), while Bemidji State had to be a bit surprised to see St. Cloud State beat them 19-10.

Both UMD and UNI are 2-0 in the conference, while St. Cloud State is 1-0-1, Bemidji and Winona 1-1, and North Dakota State 0-1-1. Mankato and UND are looking for their first victories.

Bemidji State 10-19 SCSU Northern Lights
Winona 29-17 MSU - Mankato Northern Lights
UMD 118-3 UND Northern Lights
NDSU 33-72 UNI Northern Lights

Next week Northern Iowa and Duluth face off in a battle of 2-0 teams.

"That's going to be a huge challenge," said Gray.