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Different pacing within National Collegiate Rugby (NCR) will see post-season scenarios finalize at different times. The South Atlantic Rugby Conference (SARC) includes Division I through Division III member teams, and at this juncture, it’s the Division I-AA teams that know their postseason destinies. On Oct. 31-Nov. 1, the top-four teams will report to Durham, N.C., for the SARC championships and name its representative to NCR regionals on Nov. 13-15. The DI-AA 15s national championship is Saturday, Dec. 5 in Houston.
North Carolina State University (1), Virginia (2), North Carolina (3) and James Madison (4) are the SARC semifinalists. One notes the absence of Florida teams, which have withdrawn from post-season consideration.
“Florida’s DI teams will not be participating in the NCR XVs postseason this fall,” explained Liz Critcher, the Florida Rugby Union VP for women’s colleges. “The teams expressed concerns about player availability for that weekend and their ability to travel to [the original location in] South Carolina with competitive squads for SARC playoffs. Based on those concerns, they decided not to move forward with postseason participation this year.”
Critcher confirmed that the Florida teams were not looking at CRAA spring 15s competitions as an alternative.
On the first day of competition, NC State will play James Madison, and Virginia will face UNC. Day two will be for placing matches. The subsequent stages is NCR regional playoffs, which begins at the Round of 8 for DI-AA. Teams will head to either Springfield, Mo., or Canton, Mass., for national quarterfinals (Friday, Nov. 13), consolation matches (Saturday, Nov. 14) and national semifinals (Sunday, Nov. 15). The teams that go 2-0 on the weekend will advance to the DI-AA national championship on Saturday, Dec. 5 at 5 p.m. CT.
SARC will also send teams to the DI national semifinals (Lander University), DII Round of 16 (Coastal Carolina will host the SARC title match) and potentially DIII (SARC has an automatic berth to the national Round of 16 but TBD on whether a team will take it).