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By Pat Clifton (Butch Leitz photos)
GLENDALE, Colo. - If USA’s webstream or Fox Sports Rocky Mountain deemed games instant classics, the DII national final that saw Tampa Bay Krewe score 12 points in extra time to outlast Doylestown would be so deemed.
Heading into Saturday’s semifinal round, a popular vote would have likely revealed Snake River and SFGG as the two favorites to duke it out for a DII final, just for the leagues from which they come, but Doylestown and Tampa easily dispatched of the Pacific Coast clubs , ensuring that for the first time in three years, the best team in DII would come from somewhere other than the PacCoast.
Doylestown struck first with a try from Kiel Eckhoff after some impressive phase play created a crease in Tampa’s typically iron clad defense.
“We got down on ourselves a little bit, said Krewe coach Dai Morgan. “We didn’t play our game in the first 25 minutes; we started chasing the game too much. Instead of letting them come into our strength and then sucking them in to us, we tried chasing them too much, which allowed some gaps, which opened up that first try.”
Outside of that one early slip up, Tampa’s defense was phenomenal, as was Doylestown’s, whose one first-half relapse came in the 35th minute, allowing Tampa’s Eric Saunders in for the try. Tampa’s Matt McGinnis made the conversion, giving Tampa the 7-5 lead they’d ride into halftime.
The second half saw much of the same bruising defensive play, but attrition and fatigue allowed for a few more offensive breaks. McGinnis nailed a penalty goal in the 50th minute to open up scoring, and Doylestown responded, finding a 12-0 run between stretches of strong defense, giving them a 15-10 lead with less than five minutes to go in regulation.
This is when Krewe eightman and captain Tyler Cathy asserted his will. On the restart directly after Doylestown’s last try, Tampa stole possession, and Argentine scrumhalf Pable de Erezcano found Cathy, who blew open a hole in Doylestown’s defense and rumbled 20-plus meters over and through several arm tackles for the game-tying, overtime-forcing try. Doylestown regained possession, and threatened to end it in regulation, but an errant dropgoal attempt sailed right.
Overtime started much like the second half, with startling defensive stops by both teams, but Krewe caught a break when prop Joseph Hilbush received the ball in support, and rumbled for a try. Before Hilbush reched pay dirt, he was brought down by two Doylestown defenders, and seemingly held. Hilbush then rolled toward the tryline without releasing and posted the go-ahead score. It was questionable, for sure, but the referee was out of position to nullify the try.
To erase any doubt, in the second half of extra time, Cathy broke off another bruising run, setting up Krewe’s championship-securing score. In the end, Tampa outlasted Doylestown 29-17, and the exhausting chore of bringing down Cathy no doubt took its toll on the runners up.
“Tyler’s just one hell of a player,” said Morgan. “He’s been our leader on and off the field all season long. This is only his third year of rugby. If he’d been playing in a foreign country, I think he’d be playing professionally. He’s strong, he’s fast, he’s intelligent and he’s just a charismatic leader of men.”
Don’t let the scoreline fool you. Doylestown was a resilient group, and had the DII title in their sights for over 8- minutes, but the non-stop pressure applied by Krewe defensively proved accumulative, like body shots in a boxing match.
“We’ve said this all through the year. I’m happy on both sides of the ball, whether we’ve got the ball or they have got it,” said Morgan. “And I think you saw again today, our speed off the line, our structure, our organization, and basically our pitbull attitude, desire to get at the ballcarrier, won us through today. We had some crucial turnovers down here in overtime, and we never let them get out. We had them stuck in their 22 and we never let them out.”
In winning, Krewe takes home a DII national title to the South territory for the first time since at least 1995 (USA Rugby's online archives date back only to '95), and one of the few national title trophies ever claimed by someone from the region not named Life University.
“Our 16th man, the Krewe supporters, are absolutely amazing. I got a phone call this morning from the chairman of South Carolina, he said there were 30 people in Columbia, there 50 people in Charelston,” said Morgan.
“We knew there were people in Gainesville watching the TV, they were in Orlando, they were in Tampa/St. Petersburg. There were 50 people in our Irish Pub –McDinton’s – who sponsors us, there were another 30 Jacksonville, and it’s the South man. People don’t give us credit. Sweet 16 last year, winners this year, and we want to be back here next year.”
With Morgan on board, a national championship trophy to display and a playoff DIII side, perhaps Krewe is the next Life University in the making?
(A previous version of this article may have incorrectly stated Krewe's national championship was the South's first in DII.)
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