After an impressive opening salvo against Western Oregon, the Western Washington Vikings had a lot more trouble playing Oregon on the road this week in Northwest Collegiate Rugby Conference action.
WWU seemed a little run down after a long bus ride to Eugene, but came away with an 18-15 victory over the ducks.
“Travel is a hurdle in the NCRC,” said WWU Director of Rugby Paul Horne. “We got off to a slow start.”
Indeed they did, going down 15-3 at halftime. Giving up twice as many penalties as they got didn’t help, either. But some adjustments on defense and perhaps a loosening of the muscles saw WWU come back. The Vikings forwards evened the game with a nice maul over for a try, and then got a late penalty to win it.
The victory was enough to put WWU in 1st in the NCRC with a 2-0 record. No other team has played more than one game so far.
Unofficial NCRC standings:
| NCRC | |||||||||
| W | L | T | Pf | Pa | Pd | BT | BL | Pts | |
| Western Washington | 2 | 0 | 0 | 74 | 15 | 59 | 1 | 0 | 9 |
| Central Washington | 1 | 0 | 0 | 124 | 0 | 124 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Washington | 1 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 24 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Oregon | 0 | 1 | 0 | 15 | 18 | -3 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Eastern Washington | 0 | 1 | 0 | 24 | 34 | -10 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Boise State | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Western Oregon | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 56 | -56 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Washington State | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 124 | -124 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
