The 6th-ranked University of North Carolina-Wilmington defeated #27 Furman 32-22 to move into a tie with Coastal Carolina with a 3-0 record in the Southern Men’s DII College rugby conference Saturday.
UNCW was impressive, led by Andres Lluch and the running of No. 8 Cole Schanilec. Alex Fox, James Ha, and Tyler Coffey all touched down, and the forwards try was scored by the UNCW pack. UNCW did well to spread the ball wide and Coffey had a solid game directing the attack. In tight, Wilmington powered on with pick-and-goes. Furman flyhalf Jacob Milchuck had a solid game and continually kicked his team out of trouble, but Furman mistakes put them under pressure again.
Coastal, meanwhile, won by forfeit over Lander.
The Citadel defeated College of Charleston 51-5 to improve to 202.
Scrumhalf Mike McGaffic, captain and flanker Alex MacDonald, and No. 8 Doug Brown all featured in the scoring.
Citadel dominated the scrums and lineouts, winning about 85% of those, and pinned CofC in their half most of the game.
“We had placed a lot of pressure on their scrum and flyhalf for the majority of the match,” said Coach Tommy Duffy. “Our forwards won the majority of the offensive rucks and a large portion of defensive rucks. We implemented a new scrum technique that made it much lower and greater leverage.”
Props Antonio Moffa and Chris Golinowski enjoyed big games.
Meanwhile, in the Southern-North, East Carolina and UNC-Charlotte won big. UNC-Charlotte hammered Western Carolina 109-0. East Carolina improved to 3-0 and tied Appalachian State for 1st with a 70-3 defeat of UNC-Greensboro. The Southern Conference also includes NSCRO teams that can opt to go into the Noational Small College playoffs rather than the DII playoffs - similar in some ways to the Cardinals Conference.
| Southern Rugby Conference | |||||||||
| North | W | L | T | Pf | Pa | Pd | BT | BL | Pts |
| App. State | 3 | 1 | 0 | 136 | 73 | 63 | 3 | 0 | 15 |
| East Carolina | 2 | 0 | 0 | 56 | 5 | 51 | 2 | 0 | 10 |
| Elon | 1 | 2 | 0 | 48 | 52 | -4 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
| UNC-Greensboro | 1 | 1 | 0 | 50 | 38 | 12 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| UNC-Charlotte | 1 | 1 | 0 | 17 | 34 | -17 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Western Carolina | 0 | 3 | 0 | 24 | 122 | -98 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| South | W | L | T | Pf | Pa | Pd | BT | BL | Pts |
| Coastal Carolina | 3 | 0 | 0 | 95 | 15 | 80 | 3 | 0 | 15 |
| UNC-Wilmington | 3 | 0 | 0 | 90 | 32 | 58 | 3 | 0 | 15 |
| Furman | 2 | 2 | 0 | 130 | 76 | 54 | 2 | 0 | 10 |
| The Citadel | 2 | 2 | 0 | 121 | 88 | 33 | 2 | 0 | 10 |
| College of Charleston | 1 | 3 | 0 | 37 | 159 | -122 | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Lander | 0 | 4 | 0 | 7 | 110 | -103 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
