This weekend sees a few crux games in a variety of D1A and NCR D1 conferences.
We visited Fairfield Thursday night and they have a key game against Dartmouth in New Hampshire. Both teams lost close ones against AIC that they might have felt they should have won. Now which team can stay among the top three? We find out Saturday.
In the Big Rivers they all seem to be crux games, but Wheeling at Thomas More could well be the most notable.
The Rocky Mountain D1A Conference sees BYU open their season, while Colorado State faces off with Utah, which has returned to the Rocky Mountain following the dissolving of the PAC Rugby Conference (prompted by the ending og the Pac 10 or 12 or whatever in football). There's a chase to see who follows BYU (the prohibitive conference favorites) and Colorado State leads that chase at the moment.
Also chasing that spot if Air Force, but they host Navy in the Shea Cup this weekend.
Rugby East sees a rematch of the 2023 NCR D1 final with Walsh vs St. Bonaventure. Both need this win. Mary Washington feels like they have s strong team. Well, then, beat Life on the road. That's what they need to do. Marietta, Ga. has avoided the major damage from Hurricane Helene and the game will go on as planned. Coming out of a 20-19 win over Mount St. Mary's Life wasn't feeling too happy. It was finals week that week for the student-athletes so there was that distraction, but they also just flat didn't finish off attacking chances in the Mount 22.
"Our scramble defense also wasn't good ant that allowed them to score off turnover ball," said Life DOR Blake Bradford.
Bradley Crane will move back to flyhalf for this match vs UMW, and there will be some changes in the pack, too. What Life cannot do is get into penalty trouble as Sebastian Schefferman is very much on-form for Mary Washington with his goalkicking.
In the Big 10, a resurgent Wisconsin team hopes to build on a strong start with a win against Michigan State.
"We’re pretty proud of the guys," said assistant coach Eric Bloedorn. "It's a good start but we're trying to approach it one week at a time. We got the bonus point against Michigan and that's important."
The 26-12 win over the Wolverines in the rain was a testament to the work that the entire forward pack put in for the Badgers. Props Olen Klovas and Bryce Quinton led that effort and scored tries.
"The whole pack played great," said Bloedorn."
Scrumhalf Mason Buttner was a spark for the team also and scored a nicely-taken try. He also runs the defense, while flanker and club president Titus Henkels just leads by eample.
"We're just trying to stay humble right now," added Bloedorn. "We have a really strong player leadership group."
At 4-0 now Wisconsin is on a role, but Michigan State is tough at home.
And Finally
Navy at Aifr Force isn't the only non-conference game of note. Two school-supported teams in NCR D1 face off with Southern Nazarene at Drury. And making an early start to their season UCLA visit Indiana in a very interesting clash. The Bruins will then look ahead to two 7s tournaments before returning to 15s November 2. They have a pretty ambitious schedule set forth with 21 15s games before the D1A playoffs start.
That includes games against three men's clubs, and a tour to the UK and Ireland to play University of Bristol and a rematch with Oxford University. before taking on University College Dublin.
