It was a contentious day in the Men's DII bracket of the CRC, but one in which the best teams showed themselves early.

There were four games decided by a try or less, but seven shutouts. Every team that shut out another made the quarterfinals.

Pool A was a tight one with IUP holding off a physical Minnesota-Duluth, and just getting by the Citadel by a conversion. 

The teams from the Southern Conference overall played well and showed how tough that series has been. Citadel showed that, and so did Lander, which took care of Scranton and Whitewater. But Norwich built a strong showing in Pool B with some very elusive running and explosiveness. The Cadets beat Lander 22-7 to win the pool.

UNC-Wilmington was also solid but they ran up against a Principia team that showed more overall speed, and the ability to unleash it, than any other team in the competition.

And finally in Pool D, it was a three-way tie at the top. Georgetown opened up proceedings with an impressive 38-7 win over St. Louis U. Northern Iowa, meanwhile, beat UMass-Lowell 26-12.

UNI's team play and ball movement saw them shut out SLU 42-0 while Lowell rebounded with an excellent defensive effort in beating Georgetown 24-12.

So that set up the final round of games. Lowell beat SLU relatively comfortably, but Northern Iowa seemed to wilt in the New Orleans heat a bit and Georgetown unleashed some power to 26-0. So three teams were at 2-1, with the tiebreaker points difference. When all the match was done Lowell was pushed out of quarterfinal contention, while UNI and Georgetown moved on to the Top 8.

Overall the standard was good, with teams benefitting from a solid spring of 7s tournaments. The big factor going forward will be how these teams have handled three really tough games and then how they recover overnight.