Two weeks in and the Empire men’s DI club conference has stratified into the top four and the bottom four.

Old Blue, Buffalo, White Plains and Monmouth all won to move to 2-0, while Long Island, New York, Morris, and the Village Lions all lost to drop to 0-2.

Old Blue cruised past Long Island 45-17, while White Plains continued their strong start 41-22 over the Village Lions.

Meanwhile Monmouth had to really work hard to beat New York 38-24. The New Yorkers got a bonus points for four tries.

Monmouth raced out to a 19-0 lead with tries from Rob Morello, Nick Lynch and Chris Ciarolo. But NYRC stormed back to within a try, and then Monmouth found themselves down a man thanks to a yellow card.

Playing with the wind in the second half Monmouth still struggled to get hold of the ball and New York scored to make it 19-17. The teams traded tries after that to make it 24-24 with 20 minutes left.

Monmouth edged ahead with a try from center Eric Daneman, who pounced on a charged-down kick and ran 70 meters to score. On the front foot, Monmouth got another try, this one from Ciarolo, who broke several tackles to touch down.

No. 8 and captain Nic Lucarelli converted both of those tries and kicked well all day..

“We’re happy with the win given we were missing our captain and inside center Joe Lucarelli,” said Monmouth Head Coach Pat Moroney.

With center Mike Weidman getting injured early in the match, Moroney had to move flanker Dylan Martin into the midfield, and “he did a remarkable job shutting down everything in the channel and setting fast ball for us to attack from,” said the coach.

Man of the match was Monmouth hooker David DelPizzo.

“I was very happy that our set pieces continued to improve with the pack again causing problems for New York at the scrum,” said Moroney. “We still are not firing at close to 100% but there was an incremental improvement across the team particularly at the breakdown.”

Meanwhile the most impressive result might have been Buffalo, which has a daunting road schedule and won away at Morris 55-15. The teams were actually deadlocked at 15-15 at halftime, but Buffalo stormed ahead in the second half.

“Last week it was our tight five, and this week it was our back row,” enthused captain Danny Ryan.

Veteran flanker Alex Nadiak scored three tries for Buffalo while the No. 8 position was shared by Ben Nicholson and Matt Aguguliaro. Flanker Brandon Kirk covered a lot of ground, too.

“I think in the second half we were able to shake the travel out of our legs and get moving,” said Ryan. “It was a good win for us, but this is actually our shortest trip of the season so we will have to get used to the travel.”


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