NEWCRC Kids on the Block, Maine Black Bears Are Winning

10.10.2023College Men

Bumped over to D2 from Small College by NCR, the University of Maine wasn't sure about where they would fit in the NEWCRC order.

Most would agree that the strongest small college teams could compete quite comfortably with the upper echelon of D2, and the Black Bears has at least one measuring stick to tell them how it would work for them. Both Maine and Norwich University played, and beat, University of New Brunswick. That, at least, gave Maine Head Coach Dale Russell the feeling they would do OK.

Well, they've done more than OK. They beat Boston University by 29. They beat UMass Lowell by 30. And this past weekend beat Bentley by 68. How could a team that didn't go especially deep in the small college playoffs in 2022 do this in D2? Well, the answer is twofold: 1) as we said, there are plenty of small college teams that can compete at the D2 level, but there's also ... 2) they lost to Endicott, which made the small-college national semifinals, by a last-second kick.

There's also a third reason. Depth. The Maine team has some serious depth, and they make sure they keep it.

"We have 35 guys who are fully committed," said Russell. "And we do our best to get B-side matches. At this point in the season, in fact, what I am doing is scheduling B-side games, even if that doesn't involve the A-side. Playing those guys keeps guys around and as they take a couple of years to get to the A-side, now they're still here and still playing."

Russell, who moved to Maine from Florida (where he started playing rugby) for work, has always worked to include all of the players.

"If you are showing up to practice, you’re coming with us," he said. "When we go on the road to a game, you're coming with us. When we went to the CRC 7s, we had props who came to the 7s practices. They knew they wouldn't make the 15-man roster, but they worked hard and I'm like 'you're coming with us to New Orleans, to DC. We'll put you to work, but you're on the trip because you're part of the team.' When we do that, it helps with buy-in."

This year's Maine team graduated only a handful of starters. They return their entire tight five and most of their backline.

That has helped them succeed, as has the fact that one of the returning backs, Shea Wagner, is a 2022-23 small-college All American.

Hooker Thomas Kelly has been outstanding and has scored five tries this season. Matt Drew, who moved to No. 8 from lock, has helped lead a pack that has pretty much dominated the tight play and set piece.

Their scrum has been pushed back once, and that was an early drive.

Thomas Gao has stepped in at scrumhalf and is working nicely with flyhalf Jonathan Williams—flyhalf being one position they had to re-fill this year. Gao replaced Shawn Nitsche, who moved from scrumhalf to fullback.

"Our goal is to use our forwards, and if you have to stop our forwards, then you'll have to use more defenders and then there's space for a really good backline," said Russell. Simple stuff, but highly effective.

"Ultimately every week we're running our system much better," explained Russell. "Our attack has gotten much better. Defensively we're about the same as last year, and you see we're not really allowing many points. But our attack continues to improve."

And everyone is invested.

And they need to be. One of the big problems with moving to D2 (NCR changed the upper threshold for being small-college and Maine, which was comfortable under the old limit, now became comfortably above the new limit) is that the travel times have increased dramatically. Aside from University of New Hampshire, Canadian team University of New Brunswick is closer to Maine than any other team in the NEWCRC conference. New England is tough to drive through—there aren't a lot of major highways and the distances can be a bit misleading. So while this weekend's opponent, Coast Guard Academy, will have to travel about 350 miles, most of that is a straight shot up I-95. But the travel from Orono, Maine to Burlington, Vt. for Maine vs UVM is a shorter distance but takes at least as long, and probably an hour longer because even the interstates are more windy and have to deal with lots of mountain driving.

So that is a tough change for the team, but they are embracing it.

So now sitting at 3-0, outscoring opponents 161-24, Maine has some tough games to come. They host Coast Guard (2-2) this weekend and travel to undefeated UVM a week later.

"We’re getting oto the meat of our season," said Russell."We just have to get better every week."

NEWCRC Kids on the Block, Maine Black Bears Are Winning

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