Coming into this weekend Northwestern University had a huge mountain to climb.
With Loyola and Illinois State on the inside track to be the top two in the Great Midwest South, the Wildcats entered this weekend having to beat both of them to make the conference semifinals.
On Friday they took the first step, beating Illinois State in impressive fashion 44-17.
Max Ward was the Man of the Match for making some massive tackles, hitting the rucks, and working hard throughout the game. Drew McDermott helped the attack click with some smart decision-making and good passing.
It was a surprise to many observers (ahem, GRR), but not to the Northwestern players.
"We only graduated two seniors from last year," said captain Fauzan Aryaputra. "So going into this season we felt pretty confident. We got some good athletes, guys who played football, and also a few guys with rugby experience, including some guys from England."
And they opened up the season with a 91-0 defeat of Illinois Chicago. But they followed that up with a 24-8 loss to rivals University of Chicago. That loss was part due to nerves, said Aryaputra, who is helping coach the team while injured—the coaching staff is headed up by Jim Hebson, who is ably assisted by Chuck Hamilton, Jake Flynn, Steve Merdinger, and John Perkaus.
But the team had no time to work on fixes because they had to play Northern Illinois three days later. Fortunately for Northwestern they did fix some issues and won 31-17. But after that "we I'd some of the things we needed to do and worked on that," said Aryaputra.
Getting the ball out wide, and quickly, was what they needed to do.
"Going into the game on Sunday we believed that if we kept playing the same physical and fundamental rugby we had played in prior weeks, that we could come out on top," said club president Noah Erbe. "It was a battle, but we were able to pull out the win."
Yes they did, beating Loyola 39-24. Loyola did get the four-try bonus point which nudged them into 1st, but the victory was enough to clinch 2nd for Northwestern and a semifinal game against Northern Iowa.
