GRR: NCR D1
It's a quiet weekend in Men's NCR D1 and D1A rugby in part because this is the Play-in weekend for NCR's playoff, so no regular games were scheduled at this time.
In addition, this is a good time to just clear off your desk of school stuff with Thanksgiving looming.
Queens beating Life 29-26 over the weekend shook up the Rugby East and top-level collegiate rugby in general.
Was this a one-off? Not necessarily. Remember that Life had that close call with Mount St. Mary's in late September, and of course the close win over Navy. Queens has had two close wins, as well, and in fact about a quarter of the Rugby East games end up being within a try.
The Big Rivers semifinal between Wheeling and Iowa Central was expected to be high-scoring and it didn't disappoint, as two committed, fast rugby teams logged 77 points on the evening in Chicago.
Playing at the excellentChicago Lions for Hope field in the Windy City the teams overcame chilly conditions to put on a show.
We have 10 games in which both teams in the matchup are ranked by GRR either in our D1A ranking or NCR D1 ranking.
"Hey Goff" we hear you call out "how about merging those two rankings?"
Well the results in the Rugby East have, in fact, shaken up the conference a little bit.
Penn State, which we at GRR have been saying are improving, ran out to a big early lead and cruised to a 50-39 upset win over Queens University Charlotte. This handed the Royals their first conference loss.