The Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union is fielding a very strong side for this year’s Men’s Collegiate All Star Championships. The squad only consists of players from five schools, but assistant coach Chris Hoy of Penn State has faith in the team.

“Our forward pack has good size and our backline has more speed than in past years,” Hoy stated.
“We kind of look at a lot of the teams that we play,” he added. “We scheduled a minicamp for a weekend and held open tryouts and from that we developed a group of guys that we’d like to see again. We look around to get an idea of what kind of players are out there.”

A big name in the pack is Daniel Metcalf of Penn State, who played on the U20 team in the Junior World Rugby Trophy in Georgia. He is joined by fellow Nittany Lion Christopher Saint at scrumhalf, who played on the impressive Penn State 7s team at the CRC. Winger Trevor Tunifum of Maryland is one of the few players not representing Penn State or Kutztown and will have a big impact in the back three.

The Mid-Atlantic All Stars are on a mission in Tier 2 of the competition. “I look at this as a chance for guys to play some representative rugby and show that we can play a really good brand of rugby in the east,” Hoy said.

The first step in that mission begins tomorrow at 12 p.m. MDT against the West All Stars 2 at Infinity Park in Glendale, Colo.

Forwards:
Joseph Brady (Kutztown)
Jonathan Hellmann (Penn State)
Jamie Gregory (Kutztown)
Nicholas Karas (Penn State)
Jesse Beyer (Penn State)
Brian Mellody (Penn State)
Daniel Metcalf (Penn State)
Michael Cress (Kutztown)
Michael Erickson (Penn State)
Zack Jessell (Kutztown)
Michael Lawrenson (Kutztown)
Sean Rohrs (Navy)
Daniel Tomai (Delaware)

Backs:
Andrew Abt (Kutztown)
Christopher Saint (Penn State)
Joseph Baker (Penn State)
Dolan Bruce (Kutztown)
James Kowalski (Delaware)
Gareth Lourens (Kutztown)
Timothy Ackers (Kutztown)
Dominic DeFalco (Penn State)
Trevor Tunifum (Maryland)
Mitch Vannoy (Delaware)
Gregory Voigt (Penn State)