The Story of This Year's Men's DII Semifinallists
The Story of This Year's Men's DII Semifinallists
The men's DII college championships, regardless of who has run them, have been fraught with caveats over the last several years.
It's the "yeah, but" issue that has sometimes undercut the event. For the most part, men's DII college rugby is made up of teams from moderately-sized universities with passionate coaches and players and rarely much in the way of school financial support. They are club teams, and they play hard and train hard. However, at the championship weekend, which has always involved four teams playing semis and finals over two or three days, the profile of the teams changes a bit.
They've been big schools that play a lot of DI sports (NC State, which won the DII rugby championship in 2018), or school-supported teams (Queens, Thomas More, Principia, which won the last three years). In fact, half of the semifinals of the last four playoffs have been teams that don't fit the regular DII mold. And it's not just recently. DI teams have dropped down to DII to re-set their programs and—shocker—won a championship (Stanford in 2002), and school-supported teams trying to ease into competition have used DII as a way to pile up wins in a competition that isn't really for them (Lindenwood in 2012, Notre Dame College in 2014).
But all of that has changed this year. All the shifts and changes and introductions of new school-supported programs have kind of drifted and consolidated and found their level. Finally. This year is the first year since 2017 that all four semifinal participants are regular-ol' DII teams. IUP, Vermont, Northern Iowa, and Memphis are pretty much the classic profile of DII teams. Memphis is the largest school, with about 8,800 male undergraduates. Vermont has about 4,300 while Northern Iowa and IUP have just under 3,000.
Each program is supported by their students (with a standard influx from the university's rec sports fund), along with what sponsors and donors they can get. GRR attended IUP's first expansive alumni fundraiser/hall of fame dinner, and those sorts of systems are very important for these teams.
All of these teams have to raise funds in a variety of ways to get through the playoff season.
So that makes this playoff season that much more fun. There's no foregone conclusion. Two of the teams involved, UNI and IUP, ended up being the highest-finishing true club team in DII over the last two years. Memphis has been building toward this, while Vermont has been knocking on the door for a while.
Here's how they got there
IUP lost the final last year to Principia, and while the Hawks graduated some very accomplished players, managed to reload quite successfully. Bolstered by some new arrivals and a full-healthy fall for sparkplug RJ Beach, IUP was in a very good position. Impressive victories over their main rivals in-conference, Miami of Ohio and Kent State, made it plain that they would be back. A loss to NCR D1 team Rio Grande and a win over NCR D1AA team West Chester were both very useful. Through the season IUP adjusted to the players they had.
Last year tall, rangy lock Colton Moyer was a fairly unique player in DII, playing like a No. 8 but as a lock. When he graduated, they started to leverage their outside speed even more, and use the versatility of players such as Cam Taylor and Trent Stalling (both can play as a loose forward, but Taylor is also a prop and Stalling also a center) to keep the momentum going. They were also fortunate that an influx of good freshman forwards and the development of sophomore forwards allowed the Hawks to play fast and tough.
Their offense has been impressive, especially when they remain patient and don't expect to score. tries quickly. This was showcased in the Round of 16 (63-31 over Scranton) and Quarterfinals (46-26 over Norwich).
Vermont got to the semifinals because—all together now—difficult regular-season competition prepares teams to win. It's why South Africa keeps winning World Cups no one expects them to win. UVM rolled through the early part of their NEWCRC play. But in October the Catamounts lost to Norwich and Maine in quick succession. Those games were quite close and dropped UVM down in the standings, but it gave them something to work on for the playoffs to come. Yes they were fortunate that their conference got three seeds to the playoffs, but they made the most of it.
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It came down to defense. In the play-in game versus King's Point, their Round of 16 game vs. Marist, and their quarterfinal game vs. Villanova, they allowed just 32 points, most of those against a very good Villanova side. Playing together as a defensive front is what has turned around the season for Vermont.
IUP plays Vermont Friday at 4PM and then both teams play Sunday. Friday on The Rugby Network>>
Memphis played in a fairly solid conference in the SCRC. The weird thing about that conference is that Auburn played in it and were not allowed in NCR's DII playoffs because Auburn's make undergraduate enrollment is too high (more than 10,500). But they still feel they are a DII side. Memphis, however, was a stronger team this year. Athletic and explosive, the Tigers beat Auburn 35-7 and topped 70 in four other league season. So that was the concern. Would these easy victories in the SCRC mean Memphis Tigers would not have sharp claws for tougher teams?
Well they got Wisconsin-Whitewater in the Round of 16 and did what they had been doing all fall, scoring 49 points and winning 49-17. OK, so 49 isn't over 70, but it was an impressive scoreline against a good Great Midwest team. The next round, they got slammed. Held to only three tries against a big, physical Georgetown side. This was an impressive showing by Memphis because they were defending inside their 22 for quite a while and really had to struggle. Eventually they did score with halftime looming, but it was the 30 minutes or so of defense that was impressive. And then they fell behind, only to win the game on a lineout-and-maul with only a few minutes to go. It was the fortitude in that game that set them up for this coming weekend ... and showed observers something.
Northern Iowa, as we said several times this season, started the fall with a warmup tournament against strong D1AA and D1A teams. They took those lessons (and, thankfully, the lack of injuries) to roll through the Great Midwest. The GMW is a very good conference, but Northern Iowa dominated regardless. They blew through SLU in the ROund of 16 and finally faced a team that caused them big problems in the Quarterfinals.
Even then they won 42-20.
Experience at key positions, an expectation of playing to a standard, and depth has Northern Iowa playing very good rugby. Jentry Staack, David Randall, Nick Marker, and Garrett Getz are leaders as players and in their experience. But the thing is, while this UNI team has been strong and usually makes the GMW finals weekend, they have only made the semifinals once in the past 20 years. They know how precious this chance is ... and it could the THE chance.
Northern Iowa plays Memphis Friday at 6PM and both will play Sunday. Friday on The Rugby Network>>
