It may seem like a million years ago that Principia won the 2013-14 USA Rugby Men’s DII College 7s Championships, but it’s really just last season.

And while the Thunder Chickens have had a little bit of turnover in their squad, namely Naveed Hosseinmardi graduating, they return the lion’s share of a championship team that was deceptively strong in the breakdown and very quick.

Trevor Marunde, Kendall Shoemake, Jordan Anderson, and Marshall McCurties all return. They’ve added former football player Larry Patterson, and Coach Ward Patterson has been working on building depth.

“We have moved some players around, and shuffled the deck a bit,” said Patterson. “If we’re a playing a heavy team like Coast Guard, we want options. And if we’re in a sprint, then we want to be able to play that game, too.”

Patterson’s tenure as coach at Principia has been marked by a distinct lack of ego. It was Marunde and  Hosseinmardi who spearheaded the title run last season, as they had played with the Azul program in Texas and brought back some ideas and approaches to the team. Patterson gladly shared the coaching time and the credit. So when Marunde said that Hosseinmardi was available to come in for a few days Patterson was all for it, and so was the school president, who gladly paid for it all.

“If somebody can help me out, I want him there,” said Patterson. “He helped our continuity a lot and the team is feeling very confident. We know this is a tough field of teams with all kinds of approaches, but we’ve got a fluid backline and players willing to do the hard work.”

It will be a tough lineup of DII teams Principia will hope to unseat. Minnesota-Duluth is very powerful at the point of contact, and Providence has shown they can pull out good performances no mater the obstacles. Add in the fit and hard-charging Coast Guard team, and that’s only Pool A.

East Carolina, St. Louis, Vassar, and the imposing UW-Whitewater comprise Pool B, with the UWW Warhawks perhaps the the least 7s-looking team in the list, but the one most will be worried about. In Pool C, Notre Dame College were almost good enough to be in the DI tournament. James Madison could well win this pool, which includes Southern Illinois and UNC-Wilmington.