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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

Club rugby on the road to national championship for the first time in program history

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The Tufts men’s club rugby team has had a successful season this year, and it hasn’t stopped yet. The team made a historic run in the regular season, and is looking forward to even more success in the Men’s Champions Cup, the Div. III national club rugby tournament run by the National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO).

Led by senior co-captain and scrum-half Jed McKinney and junior co-captain and eight-man Jake Garrell, the men’s rugby team finished first overall in the New England Rugby Football Union (NERFU) South Champions Cup with a 5-1 record, only losing to Eastern Connecticut State University, then ranked fourth in the nation by NSCRO. The team also secured an invitation to the Men’s Champions Cup in Glendale, Colo. for the first time in the club’s history, following an exciting run of victories to qualify for the Champions Cup.

Tufts beat Ithaca College 60-22 in the Northeast Qualifier, edged out SUNY Plattsburgh 38-32 in the Region 1 Championship and secured a 22-7 comeback against University of Maine-Orono in the Region 1 Championship -- after being down 7-0 at halftime --  to qualify for the Champions Cup National Championship.

The National Championship will be held April 28-29 and functions in the typical college Final Four format, with the semifinals on Saturday and the finals on Sunday. The only team to qualify so far other than Tufts is Xavier University, the nation's top-ranked team. The bracket will be filled out after the Western and Southern regions hold their playoffs later this spring. The Jumbos will come into the national championship ranked second in Div. III.

McKinney attributes the team's success to its members' intelligent style of play.

“If you stacked us up against the other teams in the division, most people watching our games would be a bit worried for us, because we’re way, way smaller than the other teams,” McKinney said. “We’re playing teams like Eastern Connecticut State University, which have a bunch of these really massive guys, like over 220 pounds. You look at Tufts and we’re kind of on the small side."

McKinney noted that the players' smaller sizes had a huge role in defining its game plan.

"We played this really fun, smart adaptation of how teams play in New Zealand and Australia, thanks to our coach, Thomas Clark," McKinney said. "It focuses on the whole team constantly moving, constantly working together and constantly trying to work through the cracks of the other team’s defense. It was a really fluid, advantageous way to play the game that just totally surprised these big teams because none of them had ever worked against it before.”

As the season went on, several players started to suffer from injuries, and many first-years had to step into some starting positions. The most notable out of these first-years were hooker Andrew Kim and flanker Nat Ung.

“Nat really played the whole season for us,” McKinney said. "He came in really knowing the game already and made one of the biggest differences in our team out of the freshmen. Andrew Kim came in without really any rugby experience, but he’s kind of crazy in a good way. He picked up on where he needed to hit people, how we needed him to play defense and he always wanted the ball. That type of spirit really made a huge difference on the field.”

The Jumbos have come a long way over the span of just a few years. After finding success at the Div. III level and amassing a 20-6 record from 2009-2011, the team was invited to move up to Div. II. Competing against bigger schools like the University of Rhode Island, the University of New Hampshire and the Coast Guard Academy, Tufts struggled to a 2-4 finish in the 2012 season and went 1-5 in 2013.

Moving back down to Div. III in 2014, the Jumbos began to dominate again. As of May 10, 2016, NSCRO ranks Tufts men's rugby 37th in the nation, a ranking which will only go up after the team’s successful 2016-2017 season.

“The team has definitely grown a lot in terms of competition as well as focus,” senior prop and club President Nick Nasser said. "Much of the focus of college rugby was on the social aspect and now I can definitely say most of our focus is on being a very competitive team and winning games.”

Even though the team has made it to the national championship, it will still have to come up with its own money to pay for transportation and hotels at nationals. Usually, the rugby team can pay for their regular season with money allocated to them from Tufts Community Union Senate and money the team raises from fundraising, but the postseason presents a unique challenge this year.

For nationals, according to Nasser, the team will have to raise money through the Tufts Crowdfunding platform, a new fundraising tool started by the University Advancement Division in January. All the money raised from the campaign will go toward the expenses of the trip to nationals. 

Regardless of their performance at the national championship in Glendale, the Jumbos have been invited to join a Div. I AA rugby league for next year. The shift represents a big step up in competition, as the team will be moving from their Div. III league to play the likes of Northeastern and Boston College.

“It's going to be great,” Nasser said. "Our head coach is definitely looking for opportunities for our team to grow and be able to compete at higher levels. It’s a great move and I think we’re totally prepared for it.”