ACRA Playoffs Start with Compelling Wildcard Round
ACRA Playoffs Start with Compelling Wildcard Round
The American Collegiate Rugby Association Women's Division II Fall Championship bracket are set with this weekend being the Wildcard Round.
On Saturday, the #2 team from Rugby Northeast, St. Michael's College, will visit Tri-State #2 Fairfield. Also on Saturday Mid-Atlantic #2 Kutztown will be at New England Wide #2 Coast Guard Academy.
The winner of that first game will play University of Vermont, the NEWCRC #1 team.
The winner of the second Wildcard game will take on Rocky Mountain #1 Colorado School of Mines.
The other quarterfinal matchups will be MARC #1 Temple vs Rocky Mountain #2 Colorado Mesa, and Tri-State #1 Vassar vs Rugby Northeast #1 Colby.
All games will be on November 20 at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY.
The semis and consolation games will be held on Sunday, November 21, and the final will be the weekend of December 4-5 as part of the CRAA Championship weekend.
How They Got to the Wildcard Weekend
St. Mike's was the only team in the Rugby Northeast to beat Colby but numbers problems undercut that strong start. They did finish their campaign with a 64-0 win over Keene (Colby finished their fall with a 3-0 run in which they outscored Franklin Pierce, Middlebury, and Providence 104-10). Temple defeated Kutztown 29-12 in Sunday's MARC final, winning the first-ever MARC championship for the Owls. Kutztown got good work from Emily Duff, Maddy Foster, Claudia Makarski, and Alyssa Arena and will be a tough out for Coast Guard.
Coast Guard were pipped at the final play by Vermont 34-31 in the NEWCRC final after leading 19-7 at halftime.
Fairfield beat Columbia 27-10 and then Montclair State 29-24 to qualify for these playoffs before losing in the Tri-State final 75-7 always-strong Vassar. Vassar's Emily Howell (pictured above left) scored seven tries in that game.
