Life University can clinch the Mid-South with a bonus point, tie, or win against Davenport Saturday in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The game is a return home for defensive coach Scott Lawrence, who played for the Grand Rapids men’s club for years. But more importantly, they can secure a first-round bye in the DIA playoffs. If they win their fourth game, the Running Eagles will have run the table in the conference, and quite possibly have done it while winning their games by razor-thin margins.

Like last week, when they emerged 18-15 winners over Lindenwood. 

“Tat was a tough game,” said flyhalf Blane McIlroy, whose goalkicking has been crucial to the Life effort. “It’s been like that for every game. Who can maintain the momentum and who can control the territory. We know we had chances to score and we didn’t, but Lindenwood defended really well.”

Life is quite a young team - it’s easy to forget that - and close to half their starting lineup last week were freshmen. That led to the odd mistake, but McIlroy, who grew up playing rugby in Belfast, Northern Ireland, said the team is improving. 

“The mood was always good,” said McIlroy. “We never felt we should have lost that game. We weren’t behind. And we’ve got talent. The young guys we’ve got coming in here and working so hard, they’re brilliant.”

McIlroy is one of those talents. His goalkicking contributed a conversion and two penalty goals to beat Lindenwood by three, and two weeks before he kicked two conversions and two penalties to beat Lindenwood by four. Against Davenport in Marietta, Ga., his penalty goal with no time left won their conference opener over Davenport 28-25.

“It’s something I can do to help the team, and I really enjoy it,” said McIlroy, who has a luxury not all college players have in that he has rugby posts to kick through every training session. “Actually, I am at the posts, not through them. I try to hit a post from different angles. If figure if I can hit a post consistently, then I should be able to get it through the posts in a game.”

That’s asking a lot of his accuracy, but it seems to be working, and Life University, freshmen and nailbiter games and all, seems to be winning … again.