While most of the Men’s and Women’s Clubs in the region were idle this past week end, the top teams in the MAC North and South were preparing for the Championship Tournament. Semi- Finals for the Men and Finals for the Women will be held next Saturday, April 26th with the Men’s finals following on Sunday April 27th. The location is Alapocas Run State Park in Wilmington, DE. The games will begin at 11 AM on Saturday and at 9:30 AM on Sunday.
Most area rugby enthusiast’s attention was captured by the Varsity Cup Super regionals held at the Navy/Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland but two collegiate tournaments also took place in Long Island, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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BYU Coach David Smyth had a goal in mind coming to the Naval Academy. He wanted to keep Dartmouth superstar Madison Hughes busy on defense and away from handling the ball. The final score of BYU 70, Dartmouth 15 reflects the success of his scheme. Hughes did manage a try and a penalty kick but missed an attempted drop goal. Dartmouth’s fine defensive play kept them in the game the first half but the physicality of BYU beat them down in the end.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe was on hand to witness son Jack adding six successful conversions to the Navy score of 64-10 over Texas. Navy scrumhalf Rickey Neel-Feller played an excellent game with a micro-fracture of the thumb not wanting to miss his last home game. Feller will graduate from the Naval Academy this Spring and begin training to become a Submarine Officer. He was replaced early in the second half by junior Dan Page. Page managed the onslaught of scoring in the second half and added a conversion by drop kick of his own. Another Navy Senior, #8 Chris Rixey continued his stellar season by adding three tries while flanker Beau Bartlett added two more. Texas managed just one try in each half and no conversions but to their credit never backed down.
At the final leg of the Empire Seven series held on the campus of Stony Brook University,
The Kutztown University Sevens Team advanced their spring record to 21-0. In their fifth consecutive tournament victory, the Golden Bears cruised through five matches on the road to take the championship. Playing four games in less then two hours, KU’s physical conditioning proved the difference. They accumulated 215 points with 34 against, as they defeated Binghamton University 47-0 . Stony Brook University II 29-7, St Bonaventure University 33-17, Merchant Marine Academy 49-0 .In the finals the boys from Kutztown up-ended the University at Buffalo 57-0. The leading try scorers of the day where Alex-Faison-Donahoe (Portland,Ore) and Mat Frederick (Coplay, Pa.) who each dotted down seven times. Close behind was Vetakina Malafu (Kihei, Hawaii) with five tries.
Finally, in women’s news, The Keystone Collegiate Tournament was held at Heuser Park in King of Prussia, PA. Featuring teams from; Cornell, Drew, Drexell, Hofstra, Ithaca, Penn State, UPenn, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock, Widener and Williams, the one day tournament was hosted by the Keystone Women’s Rugby Club of Philadelphia. 8 time National Champions Penn State came out on top (also not surprisingly) while the University of Pennsylvania was runner up.