A companion piece to the DI college update last week, this update looks at the Division II teams competing in the College Rugby Association of America (CRAA) spring 15s season. There are two full conferences building toward the post-season and an at-large team gauging its options.
RELATED: Feb. 8-9 Scores
The West Coast Rugby Conference got moving in mid-January, playing its first 15s league game on the 11th. The 10-team league ranges from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (CPSLO) in the south, to Cal Poly Humboldt in the north, to Univ. Nevada, Reno in the east. The aforementioned are competing in the 15s division along with San Jose State, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Clara Univ. and Univ. San Francisco. They’ll all play each other once, with games currently scheduled through March 22.
The conference championship is Saturday, March 29 (at a TBA South Bay location), and it is a one-day event. The top-two teams in the standings will play for the title, and the next-two teams will play for 3rd.
Additionally, there are four sides playing 10s this spring and they, too, will be competing on championship day. Cal Maritime, CSU Monterey Bay, St. Mary’s College and UC Santa Cruz’s second team are on the 10s circuit.
The conference does not have its schedule entered into Xplorer, so it’s been manual tracking so far. Cal Poly SLO is the reigning champion and currently 4-0. The Mustangs beat Santa Clara (3-1), Univ. San Francisco (0-3) and banked a 17-12 decision against UC Santa Cruz (1-2). Last Saturday, the Mustangs beat San Jose State (1-2) 53-0, and outside center Liz Goethals scored four tries to lead the team.
Santa Clara’s looking good, too. After an opening-round loss to the Mustangs, the team won three-straight against UCSC, UN Reno in Nevada, and USF last weekend. The Wolfpack only fell 10 points short of Santa Clara and is coming off a nice win in Humboldt. Reno’s schedule really picks up competition wise in the back half.
The whole league gets a bye this weekend, as Sunday, Feb. 16 is a NorCal U23 Development Day. The San Jose Seahawks are hosting the event in Morgan Hill, and it is open to everyone (the second camp is April 6). The two-hour assembly will also allow staff to ID talent for the NorCal all-star team, which feeds into the Pacific Coast U23 Grizzlies, the program that competes at U23 nationals every June.
WEST COAST SCORES
Cal Poly SLO 48-19 Santa Clara
Cal Poly SLO 17-12 UC Santa Cruz
Cal Poly SLO 70-0 Univ San Francisco
Cal Poly SLO 53-0 San Jose St
Santa Clara 45-22 UC Santa Cruz
Santa Clara 29-19 UN Reno
Santa Clara 87-14 Univ San Francisco
UN Reno 51-27 Humboldt
UN Reno def Univ San Fran (fft W)
UC Santa Cruz 31-7 San Jose St
San Jose St 41-10 Humboldt
The seven-team Pacific Desert Rugby Conference is represented in Xplorer, so it’s easier to follow. Still, there are some asterisks worth noting. Claremont Colleges’ DII side, for example, is playing a full schedule but not eligible for playoffs. And MiraCosta has aspirations for 15s but the numbers aren’t there yet. For its trip out to the Univ. Nevada, Las Vegas, the teams played a 7s game and a 10s game.
The SoCal season is relatively young, but two teams are undefeated thus far. UC Irvine shut out DII Claremont and then topped Occidental 31-5 on Saturday. CSU Long Beach also beat Oxy, 46-26. The 49ers will host the Anteaters this Saturday, Feb. 15, to lend more insight into who is the team to chase.
PACIFIC DESERT SCORES
UC Irvine 44-0 Claremont B
UC Irvine 31-5 Occidental
Occidental 52-24 CSU Northridge
CSU Northridge 29-0 Claremont B
CSU Long Beach 46-26 Occidental
MiraCosta @ UN Las Vegas (7s & 10s)
Regular-season games are scheduled through March 29, so if there is a conference championship (no information has been circulated), then it would have to happen in April.
And then there is Eckerd College, the only Florida women’s college team that plays 15s in CRAA (everyone else transferred to NCR). The Sirens activated in November and have built out a spring schedule, but it won’t culminate in a conference title match per se. That’s fine. At-large teams are part of all playoff spaces, but a repeat of spring 2024 must be avoided. Being so geographically isolated from the rest of the DII competition, CRAA afforded Eckerd a direct berth to the DII Spring Championship against Cal Poly SLO, a team that had played much more and much better rugby en route to the final. A massive shutout resulted.
A quick check-in with Eckerd’s president revealed that the team is both curious about what its postseason pathway looks like and that no one has responded to requests for information.
PLAYOFFS
CRAA did publish details on its Championship Weekend (May 2-4, Indianapolis), and it does not include any women’s 15s games. In TRB’s DI update, coaches’ intel filled in the gaps for the DIA and DI postseason. Division II is starting to come together, too.
A couple of coaches and administrators have forwarded information with the caveat that it needs to be confirmed by CRAA, i.e., the rumor is a DII semifinals/final on April 18-20 at Stanford University. The West Coast would receive two seeds and be joined by the Pacific Desert champ and Florida rep (Eckerd). This scenario makes sense and — provided that the DI update is fully true — would be a great showcase for women’s rugby with the DIA, DI and DII games at the same location and under the same spotlight.
The other obvious benefit to this setup relative to last year is that the CRAA 7s and 15s championships aren’t held the same weekend. Last year, Cal Poly SLO qualified for both the 7s event and the DII final, and the players opted to enter sides into both.
Again, and with the utmost emphasis, CRAA is the final word and will be circulating all info regarding playoffs and finals. Let’s just hope it happens soon, because if the aforementioned is correct, those final four teams have two-and-a-half months to raise the funds and organize logistics.