On Saturday, the National Collegiate Rugby (NCR) announced the full lineups and schedules for the Collegiate Rugby Championship (CRC) 7s competitions. The women’s divisions will take to the Maryland SoccerPlex (Boyds, Md.) pitches on Saturday-Sunday, April 27-28, and 64 teams are vying for four different titles.
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The big news is the change in format. Instead of pool play seeding teams into Cup and Plate brackets, all of the divisions will follow a knockout format — like the Olympic 7s, and the traditional post-seasons of U.S. sports. The impact? There are no warm-up games or room for an early-round loss in pool play. Every game is a must-win. It also means that teams will only play two games per day.
All divisions involve 16 teams and thus begin at thus start with Round of 16 matches. The winners, or top-eight teams, will filter into the Cup and Plate brackets. The first-round losers will funnel into Bowl and Shield brackets, and teams will finish 9th-16th place.
PREMIER DIVISION
2023 finalists — Brown and Army — return and feature on opposite sides of the bracket. They along with Navy and Mount St. Mary’s represent DI NCAA programs. American International College, Lander, New Haven and West Chester are NCAA DII, and Bowdoin College makes its CRC 7s debut as the reigning NIRA DIII champion. Historically, DIII programs have not been able to compete in national 7s tournaments because due to DIII bylaws that restriction activity within a certain period before final exams. But with the CRCs occurring in late April rather than early May, the Polar Bears have the window to compete in Maryland.
Penn State has longest history at the CRCs and represents the DI Elite, and Virginia Tech (South Atlantic) also has a CRCs tradition that dates back to Chester, Pa., days. Among the conference champions, the Midwest’s Minnesota is making its debut. So is Rugby Northeast champion Northeastern, which is actually the reigning CRAA DI 7s National Championship titleholder. The Maddogs switched their members from CRAA to NCR at the turn of the year.
The remaining three Premier Division contenders are all familiar entities. Big 10 champion Michigan and Allegheny #1 Notre Dame College are the same side of the bracket, so there’s potential to see that 15s rivalry play out in 7s. The tournament also marks the final championship in which the NDC Falcons will compete as a program. The Euclid, Ohio, institution is shutting, but finding new life at Walsh University (read more). And finally, Lone Star champion Southern Nazarene is a tough team out of Oklahoma, and home to 2024 all-star MVP and PR 7s pro Telesi Uhatafe.
The Premier Round of 16 begins Saturday at 8:30 a.m. ET between Army and Northeastern, and all of the Cup matches will feature inside the stadium.
DIVISION I CLUB
This competition is an exciting space, as it has the greatest breadth of teams location wise. All the teams are DI, save West Virginia University, which stepped in for DI Pitt to complete the bracket.
There’s good representation from west of the Rockies, including CRC first-timer Univ. Oregon out of the Pacific Mountain conference. In that same northwest quadrant of the country, Boise State and Montana State represent the High Peaks and Rocky Mountain leagues, respectively.
Claremont Colleges represents SoCal and had a superb first season in DI Pacific Desert this spring. The Foxes are fresh off their 15s regional playoffs, where the squad nearly knocked off Western Washington in the quarterfinals. Claremont has competed at CRCs before.
The Midwest is well represented by Univ. Norther Iowa and Iowa State, and the Big 10 also injects Iowa and Ohio State. The Southeast has CRCs first-timer Florida State, reigning champion Clemson, and fellow South Atlantic conference teams in North Carolina and James Madison. With the Northeast conference joining NCR as a whole, Northeastern, UCONN and Boston College will now be competing in Maryland. And St. Bonaventure promoted itself into NCR DI at the turn of the year and will jumping up from Small College to make an impact.
The Round of 16 begins on Saturday at 9:40 a.m. and those first eight games will all occur on Field 12. Once the competition reaches the Cup semifinal stage on Sunday, the matches will move inside the stadium.
DIVISION II
There is an East Coast feel to this 16-team competition, but that reflects in large part the massive expansion that NCR saw in Division II this year. First-year NCR conferences have sent their champion and runners-up: Columbia and Fairfield from Tri-State; Temple and Towson from Mid-Atlantic; and Coast Guard and New Hampshire from New England Wide. Temple has a deep history at CRCs from the Chester, Pa., days. Upstate New York’s Syracuse is also from the Northeast contingent.
The top-four teams from the 2023 CRCs have all returned with their respective conference titles, including titleholder Roger Williams (Rugby Northeast), runner-up Colorado School of Mines (High Peaks), 3rd place Grand Valley State (Great Lakes) and 4th place UW Eau Claire (Great Waters), the current 15s national champion. There’s a nice geo-graphic spread there, augmented by Lone Star champ UT San Antonio and two CRCs newcomers: Univ. South Florida and Arkansas.
Finally, the South Atlantic conference has returner Coastal Carolina and runner-up UNC Charlotte as its flag bearers.
Games begin at 9:40 a.m. ET on Field 10, and all of the Round of 16 matches will be played on that pitch. Sunday semifinals and final will be held inside the stadium.
SMALL COLLEGE
This division has the deepest roots in terms of national 7s championships, and it dates back to when NCR was a small-college-only organization. Seven of the 16 teams are returners from 2023, but only one of the top-four programs — reigning national champion Endicott College (Colonial Coast) — is back in Boyds this weekend. Lee and York did not qualify, and St. Bonaventure is up in DI.
Colby (Rugby Northeast), Ohio Wesleyan (Ohio Valley), UW Platteville (Great Waters), Missouri S&T (Mid-America), Gannon (Allegheny) and South Dakota (Prairie States) are carrying that 2023 experience forward and will be looking to step into those semifinal spots.
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East Stroudsburg (EPRU) and Baldwin Wallace (Ohio Valley) have good program knowledge of NCR events and championships, so they’re new to 2024, but familiar.
Yale (New England Wide), Keene State (Rugby Northeast), Siena (Tri-State), Niagara (Upstate New York) — they’re all familiar to that Northeast block. And then there are three exciting new additions that represent young and/or faraway programs. Western Oregon is traveling the farthest to compete in Maryland and hails from the Cascade conference in the Pacific Northwest. There’s an uptick in activity happening READ MORE. Sewanee, The College of the South, finished runner-up to The Citadel in the SARC championship, and comes out of Georgia. And Christopher Newport went 13-1 to win the Mid-Atlantic title.
The Round of 16 games begin at 9:40 a.m. ET Saturday on remain on field 13. Once the competition gets to the Cup semifinal stage, games will occur inside the stadium.
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