The National Small College Rugby Orgnaization has announced that New England College’s Director of Rugby Jeremy Treece plans to take his team to DI next fall.

Since it began competing in the NSCRO playoff system in the fall of 2012, NEC has found great success, winning the 2014 7s national championship and finishing 2nd in 15s last spring.

NEC also finished 3rd in both in 2013, and have moved on to the national semis for the 2015 playoffs, as well.

“While it’s a big jump for us and despite a male full-time undergraduate enrollment of about 700 students, I believe we can have the same success in Division 1 as in NSCRO," said Treece. "It will not happen overnight, but with the college’s commitment to building an even stronger program, we can get there. We would not be poised to take this step up without our successful experience in NSCRO. It’s because of the quality of the national platform NSCRO provided that our college’s administrators really took notice.”

NSCRO President, Steve Cohen, praised NEC’s accomplishments and is proud that NSCRO has had such a positive impact on their program.

The NEC Lions will be joining the East Coast Rugby Conference and be competing with USA Rugby’s Division 1AA clubs including Boston College, American International College, and the University of Massachusetts. All three of these schools proved their worth with wins at the recent ACRC Bowl Championship series. The ECRC also includes Middlebury, which, along with UMass and BC, finished 4-2 in the conference, all behind undefeated AIC.

This move will provide NEC with a more challenging league schedule.  This fall, NEC was dominant in winning the New England RFU small college division and proceeded to win the NSCRO Northeast Region Championship qualifying for the third year in a row for the NSCRO National Championship at Infinity Park in late April. Additionally, NEC hopes to qualify for the NSCRO 7s National Championship so they can defend their title.

“Our goal is to go out on top and win both, but that will not be an easy task," said Treece.