NCR found University of Northern Iowa as a new opponent for the remaining finalist, Southern Nazarene, and SNU won that game to claim the NCR championship.
Subsequently, Geibel transferred from his Dean of Students job back to coaching, as he was named Women's Head Coach his past January. The team retained sufficient players to play a season of 7s tournaments in the spring, but this fall it was clear they were struggling to fill the roster.
Players had transferred, but there were students who remained at the school. However, it is unclear how many were still committed to playing rugby under Geibel, and the program did make post on Instagram earlier in the fall looking for on-campus recruits.
None of it seemed to come to pass. Wheeling posted no schedule and, eventually, decided to shutter the season and fire Geibel. The dismissal was confirmed by Geibel in a social media post:
"And just like that, the Wheeling experiment is done. When I moved to this tiny little town in WV from Florida, I never thought it would turn out to be a defining period of my career and life. 6 years with the men's team, barely a semester with the women's team. Sad to see something I poured 7 years of my life into end in a dust cloud of budget cuts and bad timing. Thank you to everyone who's been there along the way. I'm not sure what's next, but if bigger and better things are in my future, it's going to be a good time."
There have been budget cuts at Wheeling, and that follows on several reports about lax maintenance in residence halls (something the Wheeling players brought up). But the "bad timing" Geibel mentions might be more applicable. While the way to fix the budget is to actually have rugby games for your rugby team (that's why students who play rugby choose certain schools), true, what is more baffling is that the Pape firing and changes with the program all happened right before the NCR D1 final.
This was a massive blunder by the school. Surely, if they wanted to fire their coach, a coach who was 23-0 in 15s since the program had started, they could have waited until after the final.
Wheeling administration and Geibel must have understood that a large percentage of Wheeling players had followed Pape from Lander University, and had some personal loyalty to him. They must surely have understood that you don't change a coach that the players like right before the championship game and expect the players to just roll with it.
It is hard to imagine that Geibel felt he or Hamilton could step in and lead the team to a championship that way, but that's where the story seems to lead.
Ultimately, rugby exists as a school-supported sport at colleges in order to drive enrollment. If student-athletes are not coming to the school and the team is not playing games, then the whole purpose of the program falls apart.
What this means for Wheeling University women's rugby is unclear. But when you look at all the positive things that were happening just a year ago, it becomes a tragic story combined with a shocking administrative ignorance of how sports teams unite and succeed.
