Fifteen Michigan First-Side players headed down to the Washington, DC area last weekend to participate in the long-anticipated Collegiate Rugby Championship. The three-day tournament, which ran from April 28-30, included 122 men’s and women’s teams, with the Michigan men playing in the Men’s Premier Cup, the most prestigious bracket on the men’s side of the tournament. Along with 31 more of the nation’s top 7s teams, Michigan fought for the men’s national championship.
Seeded sixth out of eight teams in the east division, Michigan hoped to upset Mount St. Mary’s on Friday night to secure a place in the top 16 teams in the nation. Those plans, however, were thwarted by sour weather all Friday afternoon, leading the tournament organizers to postpone games on Friday to Saturday morning and putting the schedule of the entire 3-day tournament up in the air. At 10pm Friday night, the revised schedule was finally announced: Michigan would play Mount St. Mary’s at 8:55am the next morning.
Unfortunately, the Wolverines’ hopes for a national championship were quickly thwarted by the Mountaineers, who would go on to hoist that championship trophy just a day later. After scoring immediately after receiving the opening kickoff, Mount St. Mary’s played with relentless intensity, and Michigan lost 0-41 with hardly a single offensive foothold.
After a short reflection on the loss, the Wolverine’s looked ahead to their second game against Virginia Tech at 11:40am. First half tries by Armen Vartanian and Ty West—the latter scored off of a goal-line kick deflection by Colin Sampic—gave Michigan an early 14-0 lead. The Hokies, though resurgent in the second half, could not put a significant dent in the second half, and the Wolverines came out on top with a 19-7 victory.
Because of the previous delays in the tournament, those two games were not all on Saturday for the Maize and Blue; instead, the team looked forward to playing Fairfield just four hours later at 3:55pm. Although the Wolverines found themselves at a 19-point deficit at halftime with little chance of victory, instead of relinquishing they fought to the last minute, outscoring the Stags in the second half two tries to one to narrow the score to 14-24.
Each team was guaranteed four games, rather than five, due to the poor weather and rescheduling on Friday, but Michigan’s fourth opponent, Siena, left the tournament after their third game, leaving the Wolverines without an opponent. Rather than call it then, Michigan instead organized a friendly against Aquinas, who found themselves in a similar predicament. After a final-play scoring chance was called held-up, Michigan fell 5-7.
From here, all Michigan ruggers are looking forward to the fall 15s season. Of Michigan’s fifteen players at the CRC, all but three will be playing next season: senior George Janke, graduate student Nathan Feldman, and exchange student Colin Sampic. Having found several young stars on the pitch, including freshmen Ty West and Luke Zana, the Wolverines hard at work and eagerly anticipating returning to the field in late August.
