The Men’s DII College 7s seems to be hugely competitive, except for a couple of teams. 

Just about everyone was winning or in the games they played. Southern Illinois was in a supremely entertaining 20-21 loss to James Madison, for example. That pool, Pool C, ended up with three teams at 2-1. UNC Wilmington looked to be set for a surprise 3-0 day, but were upended by Madison, who finally put it all together.

Coast Guard brought an intense pressure defense, and won a dramatic 26-21 game over defending champions Principia to book a spot in the quarterfinals.

“The boys have got a lot of heart,” said USCGA captain Stephen Palmieri. “We made a lot of mistakes in our first game, ironed some of them out against Providence, and against Principia we fixed everything we were doing wrong earlier in the day. We came into this game realizing that our defense was key. They’re a patient team and they’d attack holes, so we had to come up hard.”

But there were two teams whose games weren’t really competitive, as Minnesota-Duluth and St. Louis were just dominant. St. Louis defeated East Carolina, Vassar, and UW-Whitewater 25-5 to finish off the day undefeated. But those results pale in comparison to the Fighting Penguins, who shut out Principia and Providence, and only allowed on try against Coast Guard.

“We played really well as a team,” said Zach Schwartz, “We had a lot better support play than the last time we played Principia. And our defense is getting better. Against Coast Guard, we played alright, but we missed a couple of tries we could have scored if we had made the offloads we needed to. There’s a lot of good teams here and it’s just going to get more and more difficult as the game goes on.”

And so as the playoffs loom, Duluth and St. Louis head the group. But teams like Whitewater and Coast Guard deserve to be in the mix, and certainly Notre Dame College, which ended up the Pool C winner, and JMU could come out on top on Sunday.