The first weekend of November saw the Michigan Wolverines travel to Champaign, Illinois for a semifinal matchup against the Fighting Illini. The game was played on a brisk yet sunny Saturday morning, so the team drove vans down the night before. The game opened up almost immediately, with an early score from Illinois’ outside center. The Wolverines responded with their own period of attacking dominance, and went into halftime down 19-12 thanks in large part due to a long range try from wing Sam Glusker. The second half proved to be even more open, and Illinois scored a flurry of tries, finishing the game with 65 points. Despite strong contributions from a group of young players including A-side debutant Sam Plockmeyer, the Wolverines fell short of this high scoring total with 29 points. However, they looked forward to bounce back on the final weekend of the year with a match against the Purdue Boilermakers.
On November 10th, a rare Sunday game, Michigan Rugby traveled to South Bend Indiana for the BIG10 Championship weekend. The Wolverines were set to face Purdue with 7th place in the BIG10 on the line. The game was chilly, but the sun broke about halfway through and it was an overall dry pitch. Both teams used the artificial turf to their advantage and played an expansive running game. In his final 15s game, senior Michael Ackerman had a dominant performance, including 2 tries. The rest of the Wolverines followed his lead and ran up their highest scoring total since early September. While not extremely stout, their defense proved sufficient to secure a win, allowing 26 points to the boilermakers. The Wolverines finished the season with a 3-6 record and took 7th place in the BIG10. After a few months of offseason training the 7s season will kick off in late February with the annual Pitt Dome 7s tournament.
