One thing you have to give Davenport University - they don’t back down from a challenge.

The Panthers have embraced tough competition since they began playing as a quasi-varsity program.

After two DIAA championships, they moved up to DIA, playing in the toughest conference in the nation in the Mid-South. How tough? They didn’t win a conference game until this April. 

Photos by Steven Zomberg. Davenport handled the challenge of Army. Now come the Gaels of St. Mary's.

But before they won a conference game, they had won a playoff game, having been close enough to Lindenwood and Life to warrant an invitation to the playoffs last year, where they beat Army 29-24. This year, it was Army again, this time 50-24.

“We expected they were going to be very fit,” said scrumhalf/flyhalf Knute O’Donnell. “We knew we had to play a full 80 minutes, and also stick to our structure the entire time as much as possible. We did make some mistakes, but overall we were able to stick to our structure, and that was really important.”

Davenport will need all of that and more to take down St. Mary’s, which cruised to a 72-26 defeat of Utah. 

“We have to trust our phase play,” said O’Donnell, whose job, he says, is partly to make sure everyone is running to their spots, but also that broken play gets fixed. “If we have a broken play we have to run a few forward ball and recycle and get back to our pattern. We train to be patient with it. In practice we’’ll go 20, 40, 60 phases so we’re always doing it. We’re mentally able to handle it and we don’t get tired.”

O’Donnell plays scrumhalf and then slides out to flyhalf sometimes with JP Eloff going to fullback. He said that the return of Eloff has been a huge boost to the squad, but there are other players, too, who have stepped up, especially with the absence of captain Angus MacLellan, who is with the USA Selects team in South America. Among them scrumhalf Kevin Lydon, who has provided a nice spark.

“Mike Houston has been so solid in defense,” added O’Donnell. “And our wings Reece Czarnecki and Vershawn Burke have had to show a lot of patience, but they’re been really effective. Without Angus, our forwards really matched up well against Army and we know we can do it again.”

For all their high-level play, Davenport has rarely faced teams from the West Coast. Yes they beat UC Santa Barbara and San Diego State in DIAA finals. But Lindenwood (St. Charles, Mo.), and Arkansas State (Jonesboro, Ark.) have been the westernmost opponents they’ve faced in the last two season. St. Mary’s, with their wild West Coast ways, will be a new look. The team flew out early to have some time to acclimate and prepare.

“We are excited to play a team like them,” said O’Donnell. “We know we will have to play a near perfect game. We are excited to be in the semifinals and also to play a team we’ve read about. We expect they will be a very different style from us, but we also know that they’ve got a great scrum, which we have too. In that part of the game, and everywhere else, I think, the entire team is ready for the battle.”