PRESS RELEASE: 2011 NSCRO Men's Collegiate Division 3 Championship
The National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO) along with its Video Partner, BC Productions and its Media Partners: The City of Virginia Beach, World Rugby Shop, Rugby Magazine, USA Sevens LLC and The City of Glendale/Infinity Park are pleased to bring you the 2011 NSCRO Men’s Division 3 Championship on April 30-May 1. The event is hosted by the Norfolk Blues and coordinated under the leadership of Matt Robinette, City of Virginia Beach Sports Marketing Events Supervisor. These Championships are run by NSCRO to recognize the efforts of the dedicated players and coaches of small college rugby programs.
For more information about our Media Partners, please go to: http://www.eteamz.com/NSCRO/sponsors/.
For venue details, please go to: http://www.bluesrugby.org/ncbrfc/nscro/index.html as well as referring to www.nscro.org for the latest NSCRO news.
Competing Teams
Region 1 Champion – Salve Regina University, Newport, RI (New England RFU)
Region 2 Champion – Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA (Southern California RFU)
Region 3 Champion – Longwood University, Farmville, VA (Virginia RU)
Region 4 Champion – Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY (New York State RC)
These teams are all true small colleges (viewed by NSCRO as undergraduate enrollments of 3000 students or less by gender) with approx. male enrollments at Salve Regina of 600, Longwood of 1400, Ithaca at 2800 and Occidental at 900.
Longwood is making its third appearance in the Championship having finished 3rd in both 2007 and 2009 and Head Coach John Graham has the team ready for a run at the National title. Salve Regina finished 4th in 2009 losing to Longwood and is looking to better its performance this year under new Head Coach, Mike Martin. It will be quite the battle when Salve plays Longwood in the opening semifinal match. Both Occidental and Ithaca are making their first appearance in the Championship. Both teams are very well coached. Annemarie Farrell (Ithaca) and Jeremy Castro (Occidental) will definitely have their players ready for their semifinal matchup. Occidental qualified in the inaugural NSCRO Western Region. NSCRO expanded its participating clubs from approx. 100 in 2009-10 season to 135 clubs in the 2010-11 competitive season by including small college D3 clubs from the Heart of America, Great Plains, Minnesota, Texas and Southern California Rugby Unions.
Schedule
Sat. April 30
11AM – NSCRO Semifinal #1 – Salve Regina University (Region 1) vs. Longwood University (Region 3)
1:30PM – NSCRO Semifinal #2 – Ithaca College (Region 4) vs. Occidental College (Region 2)
3:30PM – USA Rugby Div 1 Playoff Match – Norfolk Blues vs. Long Island
Sun. May 1
11AM – NSCRO Consolation
1PM – NSCRO Championship
Video Coverage
NSCRO video partner BC Productions (www.bcproductionsdc.com), will be providing the professional video coverage of this event. The match commentators will be USAR Women’s National Team standout Phaidra Knight and Matt Robinette an experienced player, coach, administrator and rugby referee. Jacqueline Baires will provide sideline reporting, interviews with coaches, etc. Each NSCRO match will be available on DVD. For information about purchasing DVDs, please contact Steve Cohen at sdcohen4@mindspring.com.
Free Web Streaming
Thanks to the support of its Partners, all NSCRO matches will available free for public viewing via Web Streaming. To watch the matches, please go to : www.livestream.com/bcproductionsdc. We also expect to stream it live at www.nscro.org.
Please contact NSCRO President Steve Cohen at sdcohen4@mindspring.com for additional information about the NSCRO.
The National Small College Rugby Organization LLC (NSCRO) was co-founded in 2007 by Steve Cohen and Chip Auscavitch. For more information about NSCRO, please visit www.nscro.org.
Occidental Wins Inaugural West Small College Title
Wayne, Neb. was the place for the first ever NSCRO Men’s Division 3 Western Conference Championship event. The winner would earn a place in the National Championships set for Virginia Beach, Virginia on April 30-May 1.
The tournament was held at Wayne Rugby Park, one of the foremost rugby facilities in the country. Darrin Barner, head coach of the Wayne State College Men and Women’s Rugby Clubs, set up four fields with a large club house, press box and elevated radio broadcast tower. The main field is full size and is a wondrous sight to behold.
The weather conditions were warm and dry but the wind was strong and affected play all weekend.
On Saturday, Wayne State College Wildcats (Great Plains Champion) took on The Toppers St. Edward’s University (Texas Champion) to kick off the event in front of a home town crowd of about 600 people.
The setting was electric for the Wildcats and they responded with a try by flyhalf Dave Synnott within a minute of the match. However, that was it scoring-wise for Wayne State for a while as St. Ed’s got a break 8 minutes later with a 70-meter intercept try by outside center Andrew Heller. Flyhalf Andor Benyi’s conversion gave them a 7-5 lead. St. Ed’s took advantage of another Wayne State mistake by recovering a loose ball from a Wildcat scrum and Andrew Heller took it 20 meters to score. The Benyi conversion made it 14-5.
A few minutes later inside center Zach Chodaniecky scored a fine try and with the Benyi conversion it was now 19-5 to SEU’s favor. Late in the first half Wayne State’s flanker Travis Erickson powered over on a penalty play. The half ended 19-10. The second half found Wayne State playing with the wind and they tried to use tactical kicking to gain ground. The match score remained unchanged until Wayne’s scrumhalf Beau Boryca scored and with the Synnott conversion, the score was now 19-17. However, it was too little too late for the boys from Wayne and the match ended that way. SEU would move on to Sunday’s Championship match.
In the second semifinal, undefeated Occidental College Blackshirts (So Cal Champion) faced the Lost Boys from North Dakota State University (Minnesota Champion).
NDSU played with the wind in the first half but was unable to take advantage. Occidental did very well in disrupting cleaned ball to the strong NDSU backs so when they got the ball they were under great pressure.
Playing into the wind Oxy could not mount a sustained attack. The first half ended scoreless. Three minutes into the second half, Oxy fullback Mitchell Grummon kicked a 38 meter penalty goal for the first score of the match. He repeated with 2 more penalty goals at the 23 minutes later and then with two minutes left to give Oxy a 9-0 lead.
On the last play of the match, Oxy wing Joey Maloney broke through for the only try of the match and with Grummon’s conversion the match ended 16-0 in favor of Occidental. This set up the Oxy vs SEU final for Sunday.
On Sunday, the wind speed was still high but 180 degrees different from Saturday.
In the consolation match, Wayne State led by scrumhalf Beau Boryca’s two tries took a 17-15 halftime lead against NDSU. In the second half, both teams freely substituted many players who had not played during the weekend. This turned out to be a Lost Boys advantage as they scored seven tries to pull away to a 56-17 win.
In the final, Occidental played the wind to their first half advantage against St. Edward’s. two early penalty kicks by fullback Mitchell Grummon staked them to a 6-0 lead.
Then the first try: from an attacking five-meter scrum, wing Joey Maloney dotted down to extend the Oxy lead to 11-0. A late try made it 18-0 at the half. SEU had the wind at their backs for the second half but were unable to really make it work for them.
Flanker Mathew Ortiz did eventually give SEU their first points with a try. Andor Benyi’s conversion made it 18-7. Benyi added two penalty goals to make it 18-13 midway through the half.
But Oxy’s Maloney scored again with a fine try and with the conversion it was 25-13. Another penalty made it 28-13. With time windown down SEU center Andrew Heller scored on an impressive run and with the conversion the score was 28-20 and that was how the match ended.
Occidental now moves on to the NSCRO Championship on April 30-May 1.
Occidental College Rugby
Week of February 25-27
College Men vs Fullerton
Friday 2/25 @ 8:30PM (Oxy, Paterson Field)
Olde Boys vs South Orange County
Saturday 2/26 @ 7PM (Oxy, Paterson Field)
College Women vs Claremont
Sunday 2/27 @ 11AM (Claremont Colleges)
All college players must call Emmons Health Center to get their pre-season physical exams in order to be cleared to play this year.
Please call Emmons and make your appointment ASAP.
(323) 259-2657
All players must register for this years CIPP. It is important each and every player do this as soon as possible.