The Longwood Men's Rugby Team traveled to Las Vegas, NV to take part in the College Rugby Championship (CRC) Qualifying Tournament this past weekend. The CRC is the premiere event in the United States for the Olympic version of the sport known as 7's. The finals of the CRC are played in Philadelphia in late April. All but one of the sixteen teams in the CRC finals have already been selected, and this was the last opportunity to qualify.
Teams from all around the U.S. were at the CRC and every major sports conference was represented
– Miami from the ACC, Pittsburgh from the Big East, Indiana from the Big 10, UCLA from the PAC-10 and Georgia from the SEC – 32 teams in all. By any objective measure, Longwood was the minnow in a pond of big fish.
The 32 teams were divided into pools of four teams each. Then playoffs were structured based on play within the pool. Longwood was in a pool with UCLA, Stony Brook and Brown University. First up for LU was UCLA. Coming off of the jet lag, LU had a difficult time getting its footing and was shut out by the PAC-10 powerhouse 35-0.
Just two hours later, LU took the field against Stony Brook from New York and played an excellent
game against a team that was a finalist in this event last year. LU came up short in this game, scoring 30-7, the lone score and conversion coming
from Eric Minor.
