Colonial Coast Wins 3rd NSCRO 7s All-Stars

A different team has won each of the three National Small College Rugby Organization (NSCRO) All-Star 7s Championships, and 2020 belongs to the Colonial Coast. The New England-based squad featured players from six of eight schools in the conference, learned from its mistakes on day one, and applied those lessons to two impressive victories on day two.

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Colonial Coast debuted its all-star team in the 2019 tournament and readied for 2020 with a better set of expectations. Cat Carmignani (Salve Regina University) was named head coach of the all-star team in advance of the fall 2019 season and scouted the 15s field for standout talent. One tryout was held and players from six of the eight conference schools populated the 12-player squad, which included five returners from 2019. The team voted Nicole McCardle (Endicott College) and Erin Buckland (University of Maine Farmington) in as co-captains.

“Every team has a few players with natural talent, so all around, we’re pretty equal,” said senior McCardle, who learned the sport with the Rutland, Vt., youth program and has been Endicott’s captain since sophomore year. “We all have the basics down – passing, tackling – so we didn’t need to work on that but more of our shape and how we work off each other.

“Coach said, ‘When I picked you, I knew you were going to be the team to beat because of the chemistry you had,” the scrumhalf added.

There wasn’t much time to sort those connections before the tournament – save a runout on Friday in Florida – but a 36-0 opening win against Allegheny showed the team’s strengths.

“Our team is a speed team. We try to beat teams out wide and that’s how we’re most successful – that worked against Allegheny,” McCardle said. “EPRU is very physical and it was difficult to beat them on the outside and that’s where we struggled. On defense, we let players come up the middle.”

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Colonial Coast lost its second pool game 14-10 to Eastern Pennsylvania, but finished second in the pool and advanced to the same-day quarterfinals as the 5th overall seed. That pit the team against fourth-ranked Upstate New York. McCardle and fellow Endicott players recognized players from Colgate University, which featured in the NSCRO 15s Northeast Regional Championship, so there was some recognition there.

“Last year we had to play Upstate New York and they knocked us into the bottom eight, so a lot of us really wanted to beat them,” McCardle said. “They’re similar to EPRU so we knew we had to play strong defense to stop them.”

Colonial Coast got the 14-10 win to end day one, and its reward was a semifinal berth against the top-ranked reigning champion, Prairie States.

“I always say: Play hard but play with your heart and have fun. If you’re not having fun then you’re not doing it right,” McCardle said of Saturday night pep talks. “We are all all-stars so we know what we’re doing and just need to execute it.”

McCardle and Endicott teammates knew the majority of the Prairie States team, which featured Wayne State College players that helped the Wildcats to December’s NSCRO 15s national championship. Endicott finished runner-up in 15s.

“We know that they are tough competition,” the scrumhalf spoke to strategy. “They have hard runners, offload well and have a good stiff-arm. We knew we had to make the first hit so they couldn’t get the offload. That’s how we played our offense – offloads – because we knew we were quicker.”

When the team needed that extra boost on defense, McCardle pointed to championship MVP Zoe Cockinos (Salve Regina) and Erin Gunther (Salve Regina), both of whom were named to the all-tournament team.

“Zoe is an incredible tackler and very quick to her feet,” McCardle praised. “Erin is quick, too, and caught those breakthroughs. I was very grateful for that because I was sweeping and didn’t have to make as many tackles as I thought I would.”

Colonial Coast beat Prairie States 17-14 to advance to the Sunday final.

“We were very excited to say the least,” McCardle said. “Wayne State has won [11] national championships between 7s and 15s, and so everyone is gunning for them. They have the No. 1 spot every year. Most of the teams were happy to see us take them down.”

The South took a similar path to the final in that its opener was a shutout (43-0 against the Carolinas), and then single-digit decisions followed against Lonestar (12-7), Great Waters (26-17) in the quarterfinals, and EPRU (12-7) in the semifinals.

“We kept it light during our warm-up,” McCardle said of managing nerves. “We don’t take things extremely seriously because it can get in your head. So we huddle up, talk about our strengths, and what we want to do well and focus on.

“We played Lee and Eckerd before and we knew those girls are very, very quick on the outside and that was their game plan – to beat us out wide,” the co-captain said of the two teams represented on the South squad. “We had to play honest defense, keep un-clumped from the middle and stay wide on them. For us, we knew we weren’t going to be able to turn the corner on them, so even though it’s difficult in 7s, we had to have support on every run.”

Amanda Poulin (Endicott) scored first, but then the South answered with back-to-back tries for a 10-5 lead at the half. Gunther tied it up with a try, and then the South added a converted score for a 17-10 edge that held until a minute remaining in regular time. Gunther scored again and McCardle slotted the conversion for the 17-17 scoreline that stood until the buzzer. A five-minute, sudden-death period followed.

“Coach was happy with what we were doing and said to keep it up,” McCardle said of feedback heading into overtime. “She exhausted all of the subs so through the whole overtime, we had to keep those players on the field. It was very physically exhausting.”

There were more scrums as fatigue saw handling errors increase, but as the first five-minute period evolved, the big line-breaks started to come. It was only admirable chase-down tackles that kept the score intact.

“Toward the end of the first overtime, I had a breakaway and ran to the 10 meter and offloaded it, but we knocked it on in the try zone,” McCardle despaired as a second overtime period was thus guaranteed.

The teams lumbered back to midfield, and Colonial Coast sent the second overtime kickoff to the South. The ball was fielded cleanly and recycled well, but shortly afterward a pass hit the ground, and Cockinos shot up on defense to create some chaos. The Salve Regina senior was on her feet as the South attempted to secure possession, but the support wasn’t there and Cockinos scooped it off the ground and ran the rest of the pitch for the centered, winning try: 22-17 to end sudden death.

“Whenever my team [Endicott] plays her in regular season, we have to look at her,” McCardle praised the MVP. “She’s a firehouse on the field. So strong and never gives up and continues to go all the time. She’s why we won.”

Cockinos and Gunter were named to the all-tournament team as were Stephanie Franz (South), Lauren Nelson (Prairie States), Anika Blackman (EPRU), Heather Grabow (Great Waters) and Jasmyn Nash (Northern Lights).

“Salve and Endicott are typically the winners of the conference and so you expect those players to be incredible,” McCardle reviewed her teammates’ performances on the weekend. “Schools like UMass Dartmouth and Johnson & Wales and other small schools, they might not win on their own [in 15s] but have talented players who are never recognized. It’s a huge deal to win this and I’m proud of the way they stepped up.”

NSCRO women’s commissioner Bryn Chivers drives this tournament, and all the good things that’s offered the women’s teams. In addition to coaching the Prairie States, he was busy scouting the field for the NSCRO Selects team that will feature at the LA 7s in late February, among other opportunities.

“Honestly, my best decision ever was joining a school that competes in NSCRO,” McCardle ended. “I know other girls who aren’t in NSCRO and they don’t get the opportunity to come together with players from their conference and play girls from all over the country.”

NSCRO will now move into spring 7s mode and culminate with a national championship on April 25-26.

COLONIAL COAST ALL-STARS

Nicole Alberta – Johnson & Wales

Ali Banks-Mitchell – UM Farmington

Erin Buckland – UM Farmington

Zoe Cockinos – Salve Regina

Jaida Cutting Henry – Plymouth State

Katie Dirago – Salve Regina

Haley Goff – Endicott

Erin Gunther – Salve Regina

MK Hamblin – UM Dartmouth

Nicole McCardle – Endicott

Amanda Poulin – Endicott

Katie Simoniello – Salve Regina

Head coach: Cat Carmignani

Asst coach: Keith Cattanach

FINAL PLACING

1. Colonial Coast

2. South

3. Prairie States

4. Eastern Pennsylvania

5. Northern Lights

6. Upstate New York

7. Great Waters

8. Carolinas

9. Lonestar

10. Ohio Valley

11. Allegheny

12. Cascade

NSCRO #ColonialCoast