There has been a lot of uncertainty surrounding the USA Rugby DII College Spring Championship. 

The brackets shifted in an attempt to fully fill the Spring Round of 16 and ended up asking for more teams than the eastern conferences could supply. With 12 teams committed, four teams are receiving byes through the first round of playoffs.

Watch The USA Rugby Spring College Finals LIVE on FloRugby

The Capital conference, however, filled its three berths, and named its teams back in November. George Washington finished second to Salisbury and has been preparing for the trip to East Carolina (Greenville, N.C.) since then. 

“The fall was a really good season for us,” said George Washington captain Peyton Swift. “We only lost two seniors from last year, so there’s a really good team connection. We’re still young, somehow, but everyone has stepped up to play 15-as-1 rugby and is willing to play any position.”

Kelsey Ohm joins Swift in the captainship duties, and there’s good support in the younger classes as well. Morris product and flyhalf Allie Mennella is young but very experienced, having played rugby since she was a child. Denali Graham and Lauren Eckenrode also played rugby in high school and are contributing to the direction of the team.

“But I wouldn’t say that one specific person leads,” Swift said. “We have a team where, at any given moment, people are willing to take charge and own our mistakes and successes.”

Time To Study Chemistry

Good team chemistry marked George Washington’s undefeated regular season. The team then defeated Towson 45-3 in the quarterfinals and Mary Washington 24-5 in the semifinals, before dropping its lone game – 39-0 to Salisbury – in the conference final. Since November 2018, the finalists and third-place William & Mary have known about and planned for their berths to the spring regional playoffs. 

There was a lot of individual work during the winter months, and teammates got together to watch a lot of rugby. Practices started in February, and the team’s first game was on March 2. Two weeks of spring break followed, as did a 7s tournament, a 15s round robin, and a game against Towson.

“I was really hesitant about the shorter spring season but we haven’t turned over anyone from the fall,” Swift said of the 2019 build-up. “We’re essentially the same unit, so we’re building off of that and integrating rookies into the system.”

Re-Booting

When George Washington boots up for its Spring Round of 16 match against Eckerd, the team will be facing a Florida program that plays all of its 15s in the spring. The Sirens enjoy a natural progression to playoffs, and competed in a DI/II hybrid league that allows for tougher competition. Eckerd finished second overall to DI Central Florida and beat DI teams like Florida and Florida State en route to qualifying for playoffs.

“It’s very frustrating,” Swift said of the Capital split season. “You work really hard in the fall and you have all this momentum going into playoffs. Then you drop everything for a couple of months and have to ramp back up and rebuild that drive to win. There is no substitute for getting on the pitch and playing with your team, so it’s really tough to get back into that rhythm and mind frame.”

So what does George Washington do to bridge that on-field gap? 

“It’s been about the off-the-field connections,” Swift said. “We can’t always get out there and run our lines and plays, but we can go to the gym together and talk rugby or just be each other’s friends. That translates on the field. You can’t replace field time, but you can build trust. If you know your teammate will play 110% for you, and vice versa, that’s a big thing for us.”

If George Washington gets past the first round, then it will play the winner of William & Mary and Carolinas champion Coastal Carolina.

“Playoffs didn’t go super well for us last year,” Swift looked toward this weekend, “so the goal is to play really solid rugby and to represent GW and ourselves well.”

The team that goes 2-0 on the weekend will advance to the semifinal/championship series in Matthews, N.C., on May 3-4. FloRugby will be live-streaming the multi-championship event.