Well the results in the Rugby East have, in fact, shaken up the conference a little bit.

Penn State, which we at GRR have been saying are improving, ran out to a big early lead and cruised to a 50-39 upset win over Queens University Charlotte. This handed the Royals their first conference loss.

"Penn State dominated us," said Queens Head Coach Frank McKinney, who had told GRR about 10 days before that he was concerned about taking the likes of Penn State for granted. "We had a bad week of practice and a bad warmup. Hats off to Zac [Mizell], they were able to play their game plan."

Penn State Head Coach Zac Mizell has led his side through four losses before beating Kutztown 32-24 last week.

"I thought it was a very physical match with Queens storming back at the end," said Mizell. "We are better at playing the game that we practice, and I think the biggest improvement has been with how we train. We train with better purpose and focus, which has directly translated onto the pitch the past two weekends."

Mount St. Mary's played in a barnburner against Belmont Abbey. The Mount scored within in the first minute, and followed that up with another a few minutes later. They ran out to a 17-0 lead with tries from Joe Sharrock, Kiahi Horan, and Xavier Lock (who does't play lock) before Belmont started to mount a comeback thanks to a couple of MSM yellow cards. Lock scored another but it was 24-12 at halftime and a yellow card to McKay lef Mount, for a short period, down to 13 men.

"I don't know if we have played with 13 guys," said MSM DOR Jay Myles. "And Belmont Abbey plays really tough. Their line speed and their defense made it really tough on us."

Belmont Abbey hasn't won a lot, but they don't back down, and Mount St. Mary's found that out. The Crusaders scored right after halftime to make it 24-19 and we had a ballgame on our hands.

McKay returned from his sin-bin stint itching to make an impact and scored a key try at 50 minutes. But after that Belmont ran in two tries and slotted a penalty to make it 32-31.

"I was thinking where had our lead gone?" said Myles. "They are so tenacious, and their guys who came on from the bench really tested us—we did well on set piece but when the reserves came on we had some trouble in the scrum."

However, the Mount produced a comeback. They worked their way into the Belmont half and Evan Corbett slotted a penalty to make it 34-32. They then did well to turn the ball over and close it out with Lock's third try to make it 41-32.

Lock was a big star, as were Corbett and McKay, but there were other impact players. Outside center James Stelluti just makes tackles and wins rucks and does those little things.

"James is one of those quintessential domestic players; he came into Mount kinda skinny but so willing to work and he took full advantage of our nutrition and S&C programs, and he's just worked so hard to be so important to what we do," said Myles. In the second row, Dylan Staub moved from flanker and had a massive game, making big carries and key tackles.

"Dylan is another of those domestic guys who worked his way up from the 3rd side to the 2nd side and now you can't keep him off the 1st side. He's like [USA flanker] Kyle Grandy. He makes tackles, works really hard, and puts in a gull 80. He's a good student and he's the reason we have three sides."

St. Bonaventure fell behind Kutztown but came back thanks to tries by Troy Heroldt and Harry Healy. An early injury to Matheo Lorenzato hurt SBU, and so did a couple of yellow cards, but they hung tough, and with Noah Edwards kicking points and Heroldt scoring his second, Bonnies took a 24-14 lead and held on 27-21.

Mary Washington won big over Southern Virginia. Army withstood some early pressure, fell behind early at Walsh, and entered halftime up just two points and 12-10. But a penalty early in the second half set up an Army lineout and maul, and the Black Knights powered over under the posts. Up 19-10 Army failed to extend that lead and in face, after a couple of missed chances by Army, Walsh got a penalty goal. But Walsh fumbled the restart and Army scored right after that and from there were able to pull away, scoring three tries in the final 15 minutes.