With just a few minutes remaining in Saturday’s national semifinal between top-ranked Navy and No. 2 Life at the Prusmack Rugby Center in Annapolis, the visitors were threatening to score.
A try would not have changed the outcome, but the Midshipmen were determined not to allow the Running Eagles to cross the goal line.
“Don’t give up a single inch Navy. Finish strong,” team captain Ben Haugh screamed.
Life made a little bit of headway but wound up turning the ball over as Navy persevered for a 27-17 victory to advance to the Collegiate Rugby Association of American Division I-A national championship for the second consecutive season.
Sophom*ore fullback Roanin Krieger accounted for 12 points with three conversion kicks and two penalty kicks for Navy (17-1), which played superb defense. Junior prop William Webb, freshman center Jake Cornelius and freshman prop Ian Bullock all scored tries for the Mids.
Coach Gavin Hickie was understandably emotional after the hard-fought win. Navy has been chasing a return trip to the national championship game since starting the fall season by beating Notre Dame in Dublin in August.
Navy will seek its second straight national title on May 4 at SaberCats Stadium in Houston against third-ranked St. Mary’s College of California.
“It’s been an epic journey from Dublin until now. We’re going back to Houston and that’s pleasing because this is a very different team this year,” Hickie said. “What makes this win so special is that we are prolonging the amount of time we have with these seniors; We want to maximize that. It’s very important for our younger guys to appreciate that it takes a lot of hard work and nothing is guaranteed.”
Both coaches thought set pieces were the difference. Navy was nearly flawless on its lineouts, while Life struggled to execute in that department. Hickie highlighted senior flanker Vaughn Schmitz for single-handedly disrupting the Life lineouts.
“Our lineouts were very accurate. Our lineout maul was very accurate,” Hickie said. “Vaughn Schmitz stole lineouts the whole game. That deprived them of possession and was critical to our success.”
Haugh seconded that assessment. “If you can’t win a lineout you can’t win a game. Our defense really stood tall on the lineouts,” the senior 8-man said.
Life led briefly, 10-7, after senior Karch Hoffman scored a try and classmate Bradley Crane made the conversion kick in the 28th minute. Navy responded with a strong finish to the first half with Krieger booting a penalty kick in the 33rd minute to tie the score and Cornelius scoring a try just over five minutes later to put the home team ahead for good.
“We converted points almost every time we got inside the opposition’s 22, which is hugely important. I think our kicking game was good and we were patient,” Hickie said. “We asked guys to give everything they had and from one to 15 they did just that today. Everyone wants to knock us off and we keep rising to the challenge.”
Hickie praised the overall play of Cornelius and senior fly half Landon Opp on offense. He specifically cited Bullock and freshman flanker Aidan Gerber for spearheading the defense.
“Aidan was tackling like a man possessed, while Ian came in and absolutely rocked No. 13 early on, which set the tone,” Hickie said. “Our defense has been very good all season. That’s a key part of our foundation. We are a very hard team to score against.”
Hickie acknowledged it was not a perfect performance and said the Midshipmen have work to do over the next two weeks to prepare for St. Mary’s, which beat BYU, 48-31, in the other semifinal.
“We are normally a very disciplined side. I was a little disappointed with our discipline overall in terms of the amount of penalties we gave away,” Hickie said.
A high tackle by Navy led to a penalty try that cut the Life deficit to 27-17 in the 55th minute. A yellow card was issued in the 65th minute and Life was threatening to score before committing the critical turnover that sealed the outcome.
“We knew Navy was a quality team that doesn’t make a lot of mistakes. On our side of the ball, we just made too many mistakes. We created a lot of opportunities to score points and didn’t convert them,” Life coach Blake Brandford said. “Our lineout was poor today. Not winning a lineout takes away your platform to start an attack.”
Navy was dominant in going undefeated during its inaugural season at the varsity level last year. The Midshipmen blew out their opponents until playing close contests against Lindenwood (12-10) in the semifinals and California-Berkeley (28-22) in the national championship match.
However, Navy graduated several key players, including fly half Lewis Gray — the Rudy Scholz Award winner as the nation’s best player.
Several freshmen and sophom*ores had to play prominent roles this season. Navy only slipped up once, losing to Cal-Berkeley.
“I think the one word to describe this season is resilience. Last year was a smooth run. We had the same starting 15 in every match,” Haugh said. “This year, we’ve had injuries and our lineup has changed greatly.”
Navy is almost fully healthy now with junior flanker Tanner Russell the only starter that sat out Saturday’s game. Hickie is hopeful Russell will be available for the championship game.
“We’re always the underdogs — that’s the mentality we play with,” Haugh said. “I think out of our starting lineup, maybe four or five guys played rugby before coming to the academy. We get by with discipline, hard work, effort and communication.”
