NCAA Rugby Post-Season Nearly Set

[10.31 update: The original version of this article has been updated, as the NIRA standings came online this afternoon.]

The National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA) has one more week of regular-season play, but the four semifinalists in all three divisions are known. All semifinals are Nov. 12, and all national championship finals are Nov. 19 at Dartmouth. NIRA has just updated its standings, so read more for stats.

RELATED: Women’s Rugby Scores: Oct. 28-30

The Division I standings omit Long Island University, which forfeited its regular season matches by not playing regulation 15s. The Sharks did play games, just abbreviated format.

Dartmouth finished the D1 season undefeated and as Ivy League champs. All games were bonus-point wins (awarded when a team scores four-plus tries) and the Big Green maxed out standings points. Dartmouth will host Quinnipiac, which finished 4-3, for the Nov. 12 semifinals. The Bobcats also scored four-plus tries in all of their wins and also banked a bonus-point loss (which is awarded when a team loses by fewer than seven points) against Army.

Army will travel to Harvard on the other side of the bracket. Even though Army has the potential to end the regular season (this Saturday, against Sacred Heart) with a better record than Harvard, the Crimson crushed it on the bonus point front. Harvard earned six bonus points for tries scored, and another two in its single-digit losses to Dartmouth (31-29) and Army (21-19) on Saturday. Meanwhile, Army has two bonus points for tries scored, and its 24-15 loss to Dartmouth was just out of range for a bonus point. So that’s a gap of six standings points, and the most a game can afford is five.

 

Division 1	GP	W	L	D	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	BP	PTs
Dartmouth	7	7	0	0	384	67	317	58		7	35
Harvard	7	5	2	0	365	97	268	62		8	28
Army	6	5	1	0	219	76	143	29		2	22
Quinnipiac	7	4	3	0	279	147	132	48		5	21
Brown	7	2	4	1	151	211	-60	23		4	14
Sacred Heart	6	2	3	1	137	145	-8	11		2	12
Mount St. Mary’s	7	1	6	0	101	388	-287	17		1	5
Princeton	7	0	7	0	46	551	-505	8		0	0

 

Division 2 is subdivided into North (AIC, Davenport, New Haven) and South (Lander, Queens, West Chester) pools due to geography, and the semifinals are crossovers: North #2 @ South #1, and South #2 @ North #1.

It’s already determined that West Chester (South #2) will travel to Davenport (North #1) for one semifinal, and that knockout will get a preview this Saturday. The teams travel to Wheeling, W.V., to contest a rescheduled match from earlier in the fall. Should the game come off, West Chester will have played all of the D2 teams playing 15s this fall.

The game with post-season impact is AIC vs. New Haven. These two teams played a pre-season scrimmage on Sept. 1, and the Yellow Jackets are favored to win on Monday, Nov. 7. In that case, AIC (North #2) will travel to Queens Univ. of Charlotte (South #1) for the Nov. 12 semifinal. AIC is coming off a 59-10 win against West Chester and Queens just beat Navy 19-12 in non-conference play.

Keep in mind that even though the standings show just two games played, these teams supplemented their schedules with lots of competitive matches.

 

Division 2	GP	W	L	D	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	BP	PTS
Davenport	2	2	0	0	140	19	121	35		2	10
Queens	2	2	0	0	95	0	95	14		1	9
West Chester	2	1	1	0	46	27	19	8		1	5
AIC	1	0	1	0	19	22	-3	3		1	1
UNH	1	0	1	0	0	118	-118	0		0	0
Lander	2	0	2	0	7	121	-114	1		0	0

 

Division 3 is the clearest cut of the three competitions. Everyone played each other as of last weekend, and there are no caveats to the standings. The semifinals are thus:

Castleton @ Bowdoin
Norwich @ Univ. New England

Bowdoin won its three league matches in bonus-point fashion and tuned up against CRAA DII Fall 15s Champion Vassar College last weekend. On Nov. 12 the Polar Bears will face Castleton, which is playing 15s for the first time in its varsity history. New England traveled to Norwich last Saturday and sent eight players into the try zone during the 67-5 win. The rematch will occur in Biddeford, Maine.

 

Division 3	GP	W	L	D	PF	PA	PD	TF	TA	BP	PTS
Bowdoin	3	3	0	0	149	24	125	23		3	15
UNE	3	2	1	0	129	36	93	21		2	10
Norwich	3	1	2	0	56	125	-69	10		1	5
Castleton	3	0	3	0	13	162	-149	1		0	0