"I was really proud of the way the group responded this week," said Life DOR Blake Bradford, who was named USA Rugby set piece specialist coach this week. "Coming off a disappointing performance against Navy, we challenged the players to take ownership of our standards and show what a Life University team should look like. It was a tough day for rugby with the cold and windy conditions, but I thought the players adapted well and, most importantly, we were much more clinical when we got into the opposition 22."
Putting the opposition under pressure was something Life didn't feel like they did against Navy.
"It was pleasing to see the improvement in our execution," said Bradford. "We showed what we’re capable of, but the challenge now is to make that level of performance our standard, not an exception. We’ve got plenty of work ahead of us, and this group needs to keep building.”
Arizona Hosts Vikings
Western Washington played its first D1A-vs-D1A match and traveled to Tucson to face the Arizona Wildcats.
Arizona was impressive, getting an early try from scrumhalf Connor McIsaac, who was good in support of Ethan Heim. Chris Grosse punished a handling error, and while WWU got one back, the Wildcats kept coming.
Flyhalf Saxon Gerstl put center Nick Morgan through a gap, and then McIsaac sent a box kick that was chased down by Jake Schumacher. He set up Marcus Harris and it was 26-7 at halftime.
Heim scored two tries in the early going of the second half and later on Morgan and Schumacher added to the tally. It was a good day for Arizona with their next level XV beating Arizona State.
“I'm proud of the way the group competed across both matches, and it's encouraging to see contributions from throughout the program," said Arizona DOR Sean Duffy. "Our focus is on building depth, developing competition within the squad, and establishing the standards and culture required to compete for a national championship."
Army Pulls Away
Army defeated Southern Virginia 49-17, The Black Knights scored early by sending it wide and skipper and flanker Landin Duffy got the inside pass to score. SVU responded by marching down into Army territory and using their powerful forwards to crash over. B
ut the Knights were sloppy in their next exit, were forced to kick wildly, and then when it seemed they would get away with it, turned the ball over close to their line and now were down 14-7.
Army quick-tapped on a penalty and the forwards ran a couple of offloads to score from 40 meters out. But SVU got one back, with a slicing run from William Matakibau slipping a short pass to Jayston Koi for his side's second try.
But SVU were undisciplined. As the first half was coming to an end, players were offside on a clearance kick. Army took the scrum, got a penalty off that scrum, tapped quickly, and the forward surged over. That was a tough one for SVU to take.
In the second half Army camped out in the SVU 22, but Southern Virginia's defense held firm for about 10 minutes before an impressive eight-man shove took it over.
Army cruised from there, but Southern Virginia continues to make strides.
Elsewhere
Ohio State beat Indiana 42-25.
Storming First Half Sees Ohio State Past Indiana
St. Thomas lost a close one in a crossover match with Queens. St. Thomas had a chance to overhaul Queens but the Royals did well to close it out. Michigan State beat Trine 58-8, while UC Santa Cruz beat Southern California 35-5.
Grand Canyon's tour to Colorado was, unfortunately, reduced to one game as Colorado State is not playing while a discipline issue is dealt with—that's basically all we can tell you at the moment about that save that they are waiting to go through what appears to be a slow process.
For GCU, that meant a three-day trip didn't yield the needed games. But they unleashed in impressive fashion 53-12 over a very good Colorado team.
