Throughout New England and off further South the National Small College Rugby Association games have started.

Small colleges are moving their way toward a national championship, giving the smaller-enrollment schools a pathway to glory.

This weekend, in the Cardinals Conference, Lord Fairfax Community College leads the league with a 1-0 record, having already beaten Virginia Commonwealth.

LFCC takes on Hampton-Sydney this weekend, while Chrisopher Newport visits Richmond, Duke visits VCU, JMU’s development team plays at Roanoke College, and Lynchburg visits Emore & Henry.

It’s an even larger slate of games in New England:

New England College at Colby-Sawyer College
Johnson State College at Fitchburg State
Keene State at Lyndon State College
Williams College at Brandeis College
Amherst College at Nichols College
Lasell College at Curry College
UMass- Boston at Salem State
Bowdoin College at Bates College
Maine Maritime at University of Maine- Farmington
Colby College at University of New England

New England College are, of course, the defending national 7s champs and runners up in the national 15s final, won by St. John’s. NEC takes on Colby-Sawyer. Meanwhile the New England regional finalists, Bowdoin, are at Bates. Babson, which lost a close one to Bowdoin in last year’s playoffs, are idle.

Defending national champions St. John’s play the University of Minnesota in a non-conference warmup.

Colby in Maine has some big aspirations, and looks to get on the front foot as they host Lasell.

Colby, a school for fewer than 2,000 students, has had a men’s rugby team for about 40 years, and a women’s team for about 30.

They’ve produced their share of accomplished players, including USA WNT player Sarah Walsh, but things hit a major bump last year when the school decided to discontinue both rugby programs because of expense and because they were concerned about risk management.

The clubs were distraught and mounted a campaign to reverse the decision involving friends and alumni. They raised over $150,000 to fun the programs, and rescue rugby at Colby. The men are captained by Andrew Roan (formerly of Snake River in Idaho) and Bret Beaney (formerly of Portland RFC) with Ryu Matsuura from Japan and Quill Yates top players.

They want to haul in their rivals around Maine. But maybe, by playing at all, they’ve already won.