GRR: Keystone
It's Rutgers v St. Joe's for the Keystone Conference title as both teams won games Saturday.
Both teams had to work for it in today's semifinals. St. Joe's beat West Chester 44-22, but West Chester led early and it was 17-15 well into the game. But tries from Ryan Stickno and Greg McTiernan put the Hawks ahead by 14, and Noah Niumataiwalu and Jimmy Wolfer closed it out.
In writing about the Chesapeake Conference, where there seemed to be an inordinate number of close games, we decided to see if our impressions were correct.
So we looked at the stats in Men's DI College rugby. We looked at which conferences had the most close losses (7 points or less) and also who had the most, what we'll call "competitive losses," which means losses of 14 or less.
Of the three Keystone Conference playoff games played Saturday, certainly the Temple v Pitt matchup was the most intriguing.
While Rutgers thrashed Lock Haven 96-0, and West Chester took care of Millersville 68-13, the #3-seed Temple upset #2-seed Pitt 38-31.
The DIAA Fall playoff picture is clearing a little bit as USA Rugby works on the brackets.
Here's how it looks to be shaking out:
Jimmy Wolfer scored two tries and kicked four conversions in the 28-26 St. Joseph’s victory over Pitt on Saturday, securing 1st place in the Keystone West.
It’s not hard to see his influence. The elusive center needed to score those tries, and certainly needed to kick those conversions - a couple of which were right on the sideline - for the Hawks to win that game.