The semifinals for the NCR Women's collegiate playoffs are set for the Tennessee Rugby Complex in Knoxville.
In the small-college final four, SUNY Cortland takes on Lee University at 9AM, and Wayne State plays Northern Michigan at 11AM.
These dizzying heights are a first for NMU and they will be playing a Wayne State team that has been there before. Three teams got through the first rounds of playoffs in impressive fashion. Cortland beat University of Rochester 28-10 and Endicott 34-10; NMU dismissed MSU Moorhead 74-19 and got a bye to advance after that; Lee defeated Loyola 37-17. Wayne State defeated Iowa 76-20 Sunday, but that was part of their regular season, in which they were 8-0 and averaged almost 100 points in the last four games they've played. Defensively, Wayne State allowed 27 points, 20 of them this past Sunday. Only Pitt State (89-7) also scored on them.
In D1 Notre Dame College meets Northern Iowa at 1PM. NDC is bouncing back from a rough couple of years where games, and wins, were very hard to come by, and there was a really concern they might not be competitive at all. But under new Head Coach Jack Nece they rebounded from an opening loss to Fairmont State to win 10 in a row including this past weekend's 39-7 defeat of Roger Williams and 57-10 dismissal of Colgate.
"The team has showed great progress over the season," said Nece. "For a year we were not even supposed to play any 15s matches, we have outscored our opponents be an average of 60 points. I can't ask for much more than that."
UNI beat North Dakota 120-5 and slammed UW Eau Claire 66-7 to make this game and were led by co-MVPs Maggie Burns and Ciara Rose Stanerson-Edwards and a gritty performance by Emma Bacon.
And at 3PM Marquette faces Life University.
Marquette has rolled by massive amounts through their opposition, so 29-26 over Iowa State was a bit of a nailbiter and even 41-12 over Grand Valley State was closer than normal.
They face a young Life University side that is made up of mostly freshmen and sophomores, but is still a group training against Eagles and All Americans on a regular basis. Head Coach Rosalind Chou praised the leadership of captains Emma Fredlund-Adams and Hanna Boekelman (basically the one senior they're allowed to play). Lyric Greenhill-Casados scored three tries in a 56-0 shutout of Syracuse as did Sarah Barsoum, and freshman Nina Mason scored all four ways against Clemson in a 55-0 shutout.
Didn't know she could hit drop goals? We did. She could in high school ...
File this under "you don't see that often." Girls HS final in @rugby_pa. @DoylestownRugby 's own Nina Mason launches a drop goal in open play under pressure. Beautiful. How's that @NicHeavirland@kelteralev ? pic.twitter.com/XiFr0xkbLQ
— Alex Goff (@goffrugbyreport) May 17, 2021
Mason scored a try, kicked four conversions, three penalties, and a drop goal for 25 points. She scored 14 in the previous game, including a try. Barsoum ended the weekend with four tries.
