The University of Washington hosts Western Washington in the final of the Northwest Collegiate Rugby Conference season Saturday in Seattle.

The winner goes to the DIAA quarterfinals, and it's a tough game to pick. Washington defeated WWU 10-0 in the meeting between the two teams in the regular season, but the Vikings are much improved since then - witness the difference between their winning margin against Oregon in January (three) and last weekend in the semifinals (26). This comes down to the defense, more than anything else. WWU has put together a formidable defensive front.

The Huskies, for their part, have been playing good defense all season, giving up about 11 points a game to teams not named Central Washington, and holding WSU to only six. So while UW scored 35 last week and WWU 43, it won't be the same this weekend. It's going to rain on Saturday in Seattle, and that won't help make it a high-scoring game, and neither will be approaches of these two teams. 

The game kicks off at 1:30pm Pacific Time, and will be streamed live by USA Rugby's TV channel: http://youtube.com/usarugbytv

Also this weekend, the Heart of America champs will be crowned. See here. In addition, the Pacific West will see four teams play off, with UC Davis still strongly favored. See here for more.

The Gold Coast tournament also will be held this weekend, with Cal State Long Beach heavily favored. Unlike the NCRC top teams, who got where they are mostly through their work on defense, Long Beach got there thanks to scoring. The 49ers scored more than their nickname five out of six league games, and averaged 66 points every 80 minutes. Defensively they're OK, too, holding teams to 17 - that's right, seventeen - points in six games. The only team to come anywhere near Long Beach is Santa Barbara City College, a team that averaged 50 points a game against everyone else, and netted exactly zero against the 49ers.

It's not a done deal, but someone out of SBCC, San Diego, or Cal State Fullerton will have to pull out something special to take down CSULB.