Beantown’s poised for the post-season. /// Photo: Melissa Barker
The National League will supply the eastern portion of the Women’s DI Club National Championship quarterfinals, set for May 20-21 in Pittsburgh (Tucson for the western portion). Below is an update on the three Competitive Regions (CRs) building toward their respective championships. Also, stay tuned for information on the repechage match will that name the fourth eastern quarterfinalist.
RELATED: DI Club Update: American League • DII Club Update: National League • Women’s Rugby Results: April 8-9
MIDWEST (standings)
Chicago North Shore and Detroit have already clinched berths to the DI Midwest championship, but they are scheduled to play each other on April 22 in their final league game. The teams also just traveled to the Mid-Atlantic for the Gold Cup. The Midwest title will be awarded on May 6 in Lemont, Ill.
ATLANTIC NORTH
Summary: On April 29, the top-two teams from New England and the top-two teams from Empire will contest crossover semifinals at the higher seed’s home, and then the victors will advance to the Atlantic North championship on May 6 in Albany.
– New England (standings) embraced a hybrid league in the fall and added DII Providence and Burlington to form a five-team “Tier A” competition. In the spring, those DII teams then received automatic berths to the DII NERFU semifinals, which occurred last weekend (read more). Beantown (6-0) is the top DI team, while Boston (2-3-1) is second.
– Empire (standings) was hybrid as well this year. Five teams contested a home-and-away series, and now the top-two teams (#1 Monmouth, #2 Village Lions) move into the DI post-season, and the third- and fourth-place teams (Morris and Brooklyn) move into the DII post-season.
That sets up the following Atlantic North semifinals for April 29:
Village Lions (Empire #2) @ Beantown (New England #1)
Boston (New England #2) @ Monmouth (Empire #1)
The victors head to the May 6 Atlantic North championship, and the final team standing advances to the national quarterfinals.
MID-ATLANTIC (standings)
There is one more round of league play, and then all four teams will reconvene for the Mid-Atlantic championship on April 29-30 in Norfolk, Va. Raleigh and NOVA are the strongest teams and put in impressive Gold Cup performances last weekend. The two play each other on April 22 and it will be a good gauge of where the teams stand since their previous meeting in the fall.
REPECHAGE
Since there are no DI teams in the South, the National League needs to fill a fourth seed to the national quarterfinals. Last year, Mid-Atlantic runner-up NOVA and Northeast runner-up Beantown contested that play-in during the gap week between CR championships and the national Round of 8. We will update once this year’s scenario is confirmed.