It was a relatively quiet weekend in men’s D2 college rugby, but the games played were loud enough.
Northern Iowa and University of Chicago will battle for the Great Midwest title after both won their semifinals.
UNI had one of their toughest games of the season before putting Northwestern away 36-22. Meanwhile, the story from Chicago had been that when they had tied Loyola earlier in the season UC had barely started training and were woefully undercooked.
They showed that they had improved with a convincing 35-10 win over Loyola.
Northwestern will play Loyola for 3rd, which is an important finish for teams from the GMW as the winner gets a play-in.
Salisbury beat Towson 34-27 and Scranton downed Villanova, putting those teams, along with Towson (who beat Scranton earlier in the season) into the MARC final.
Scranton, Salisbury Land Key Victories in MARC D2
Villanova and Towson still have one more shot at a NCR national playoff spot in the 3rd-4th game.
In the Gateway, it was also a bit lopsided. John Brown beat Washington University handily, 64-12, to make the conference final. Led by a man-of-the-match performance by Mati Gagne, JBU was able to share the wealth and get seven different players on the scoresheet.
And in the Liberty, it will be RPI and Cornell in the final. Cornell beat Albany 93-0, and they have, to be fair, been scoring big against every team.
And while Cornell did beat RPI 50-5 in their first meeting, Cornell Head Coach David Burke isn’t counting any chickens.
“We are cautious going into the Liberty Championships against them as they gave us a fierce battle in the forwards,” Burke told GRR.
In that previous game, Cornells superior fitness and their depth in their forwards allowed them to pull away.
RPI showed well in the semis with a 45-28 win over Marist to once again get to the conference final.
“The team is showing signs of significant improvement,” said RPI Head Coach Josiah Schemmann. “The forwards have ironed out the last few kinks to be one of the better packs we have had, and the backs certainly had their best game of the season so far.”
Inside center Felix Teng has started to break out after moving from fullback. He scored two tries in each of the last two games for the Engineers.
Backing up that performance is flanker Spencer Courville, who brings what Schemmann dubbed “crazy-high intensity and line speed.”
They’ll need it.
