This is the final weekend of the regular-season for NIRA; here’s what’s up.

D-I

On the march up the standings, Brown hung on this past weekend to beat Army 40-33 this past week.

That game was quite the thriller and ended in dramatic fashion. Down 40-14 Army scored three tries to make it 40-33 with the clock ticking away.

Time was almost up and Brown had a chance to ice it with a penalty goal. While we’re not exactly sure if time was up, it seemed like it might have been true that the game would end even on a missed kick … so it was a good option for Brown.

But, the kick hit the post and Army responded very well to try to mount an attack and maybe score that final try.

But Brown held on. They were penalized, but still the Brown defense to close out the game was excellent and they forced a knock-on to finally end the game.

Akilah Cathey scored three tries and Nikki Lynch scored two for Brown and that game launched Brown to 3rd, past Army and threaten Harvard for 2nd.

Before the game Army was 3rd in NIRA’s Power Rankings with a rating of .938, and Brown was 4th at .869. But the win over Army (bolstered by strength of schedule factors) saw Brown jump to .915 and Army slip to .875. Harvard, for their part, won big over Navy and, critically, won by 67. Winning by more than 65 starts to kind of hurt teams because winning margin is limited in the Power Rankings but losing margin is not. So if you win by a massive amount all that does is reduce your own strength of schedule score.

So winning by 67 was almost perfect, and Harvard’s Power Ranking improved from .954 to .980. 

Now … in this final regular-season weekend in NIRA, will we see any changes in the semifinal matchups? We at GRR think no. The closest team to Army is Quinnipiac, which sits 2-2-2 and at .790. Quinnipiac plays Sacred Heart, which is ranked just behind the Bobcats at .771. Early in the season this looked like it might be a playoffs-or-not game. But it’s now going to be very difficult for either Quinnipiac or Sacred Heart to make the semifinals. The winner also has to hope Army loses to Navy (1-4). If that happens, OK, then the almost .100 Power Rankings gap could be bridged, but that’s about it. Army is favored over Navy.

Shout-out to Princeton for getting their first win of the season. We have photos of that. Malinka Kwemo scored three tries while Ava Gregory and Amelia Clarke scored two tries each. 

One additional point about Princeton vs Mount St. Mary's. Yes, MSM is winless and had struggled, and yes Princeton has just one victory, over winless MSM, and has struggled to a certainly extent. And yes we're talking about this in part because we've got some excellent photos from David Hughes above. But ... BUT ... these players play rugby and they play it quite well. These teams still now what they're doing. Bowdoin is in control in D-III but Princeton beat Bowdoin 59-0. Princeton scored three tries on Navy and on Quinnipiac. Mount will play West Chester this weekend and you'll see a difference between D-I and D-II. Long Island University, which is in D-I but stepped away from a Rankings schedule to sort of rebuild, beat West Chester and beat possibly the top D1 club team on the East Coast in Northeastern. 

So it's been tough to find wins for these teams, but they are still effective programs teaching the game and playing rugby.

D-II

We said AIC vs Davenport might be a preview of the final, and it really looked like that. Naomi Dodd scored two tries, Camryn Henderson logged 15 points with a try and five conversions, but the key play may well have been Sa’Tya Miller’s try to seal the game at the end. AIC 40 Davenport 31.

Frostburg’s 58-38 win over New Haven moved Frostburg from 5th to 4th. Frostburg No. 8 Scout Spadoni scored three tries as FSU ran out to a 46-12 lead, only to see New Haven come storming back to make it a 46-38 game.

Spadoni went over for another, although this time it ended up being a penalty try, and Frostburg moved on from there. 

Why does this matter? Well, this almost guarantees a semifinal spot for FSU. New Haven now has to upset AIC (unlikely given AIC’s excellent form) to change that scenario. 

D-III

Bowdoin is dominating and did so over the weekend. Lulu Linkas scored four tries in their big shutout win over New England.