West Coast DII championship last spring •
The National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO) contests its 15s national championship in the fall, and the league has more than 100 women’s teams vying for those playoff spots. Due to its fall 15s, spring 7s orientation, small schools that play 15s in the spring have been excluded from the competition, but there is a proposal to potentially include these teams next year.
NSCRO women’s commissioner Bryn Chivers details the proposal (click here) for a Pacific Coast seed to national playoffs, and it’s been circulated to conference commissioners. Essentially, the best small school (full-time enrollment of 3,500 or fewer female undergrads) from the Gold Coast, West Coast and Cascade conferences would join a fourth at-large team in an NSCRO Pacific Coast Championship in April 2017. The victor would secure a berth to the 2017 NSCRO national championship playoffs in fall 2017.
The teams that qualify for NSCRO inclusion face the biggest decisions, the most imminent being that they must declare their intentions prior to their 2017 season kicking off. But the decisions will also affect the conferences themselves, as there are many ways the league can configure a DII/NSCRO hybrid competition.
For example, the Mid-Atlantic (MARC) “ignores” NSCRO status until after the conference title has been decided, and then teams advance to DII or NSCRO regional playoffs. Others separate their DII and NSCRO teams but work in some friendly crossovers that don’t count toward league records. Others use standings instead of conference championship to name reps – there are many options, and that’s why West Coast commissioner Vicki Hudson is requesting feedback from members.
Hudson has set up a poll (click here) so players, coaches and administration understand what’s at stake and can have their opinions heard. Ultimately, it’s up to the NSCRO-eligible teams to decide whether they want to pursue the small-school pathway, but the entire league can lend input into how the regular season and conference playoffs look.
Interestingly, the West Coast hosted a DII/DIII split conference last year, after it was announced that USA Rugby was going to host a DIII championship. When that competition didn’t come to fruition, the DIII West Coast champion, Fresno State, took an at-large berth to the DII Round of 16 in southern California. The Bulldogs went on to upset 2015 DII runner-up UC Riverside.
For more information on NSCRO, visit www.nscro.org. To learn more about the West Coast, visit the conference Facebook page here.