GRR: RPI
American collegiate rugby has split up into very specific tiers and because of that it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that all the potential high performance players are in the highest divisions.
But that’s certainly not the case; witness our latest example, Ray Santiago.
RPI laid down ... maybe not a marker, but a warning this past weekend in a close loss to Marist.
The Engineers fell short 12-10 to the Red Foxes, leaving Marist undefeated, but with the conference playoffs looming, RPI could shake things up.
Marist moved to 4-0 in the Liberty Conference Men's DII with a very difficult 12-10 win over RPI.
Marist went into the game ranked #7 by GRR and RPI was #36, but the Engineers battled hard and almost pulled it out.
"Credit to RPI, who played a physical brand of rugby," said Marist Head Coach James Kimberley.
Marist defeated Hofstra to win the Tri State Conference Men's 7s Championship Sunday, making it a 15s-7s conference double for Marist.
Hofstra made the final with a 31-0 defeat of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the semifinals, while Marist held off Fairfield 30-19 to make the championship game. The Fairfield team entered into this tournament was their development side.
Marist won the men's D2 Tri-State Conference championship, beating RPI 47-10 Sunday to book at spot in the NCR national playoffs.
Federico Gubana was a scoring machine for Marist, logging an astounding 32 points from two tries, five conversions, and four penalty goals. Wing Shemar Phillip added two tries and outside center Albert Severini added a try as well.