Looks Who's No. 1 in the Country:
The Claremont Colleges Men's Rugby
Club Wins the DII Nationals

Slay the Dragons they did not. When Temple University faced The Claremont Colleges Men's Rugby Club on Saturday, May 1 at Stanford University for the Division II national championships, the victory was Claremont's. Beating Temple 25-19, the Dragons proved they're the No. 1 team in the nation. Not only that, they just got promoted to the Division I league, which means that next season they'll be playing with the big boys, going up against teams from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, UCLA, San Diego State University, Arizona State University, and the University of Arizona.
Although division promotions are determined every season by a team's performance, Dragons head coach Jeremy Ognall sounds confident that his Claremont club team will hold its ground on the field. "I'm not planning on us coming back down," he says of their Division I designation.
The Claremont Men's Rugby Team is a mix of players from Claremont McKenna, Pomona, Harvey Mudd, and Pitzer colleges, although half of the players this year are from CMC, andnot surprisinglymost of the guys also play football, which helps with their year-round conditioning. Although they've played in years past as a Division I team, under longtime coach and chief organizer Wally Cox (who recently retired after 20 years), this is the first time since 2006 that the Dragons have gotten to division playoffs, says Ognall, who guest-coached the team before being asked to take over.
His objective, after the Dragons beat Loyola Marymount, UC Santa Barbara, St. Louis University, the University of Vermont, and then the University of Miami Ohio in semifinal rounds, was to keep his team focused for the national championships on May 1.
"This isn't social rugby," Ognall said. "For them to be serious and to win the nationals, they had to be professionals. The guys have been putting in a minimum of 15 hours a week in training and practice. For the last few weeks, as they've competed in the playoffs, I've been reminding them that at some point the season will end, but that we should end it on our terms.
"I think the players bought into what we were trying to do," Ognall continues. "The seniors on the teamthe team leadersweren't going to let us go down without a fight. They were thirsting to win this and they earned it."
Of course with the Dragons now advancing to Division I status for the 2010-11 season, commitments from the athletes to work even harder grows proportionally, Ognall says. When the season resumes sometime in November, the players need to already be conditioned so they're ready for game-openers in January. Fortunately, many of them will keep up with their training through the football season, he says.
Ognall hopes to grow the Dragons to about 50 playersenough to form two complete squads to run two games a day, both at the junior varsity and varsity levels. Currently the team numbers 36, but, he notes, "there's the potential to lose four or five players every season because of injuries."
Whatever happens next season, this season will be one they will all remember forever.
For more information about the team, including photos from recent matches, visit: http://www.cmsathletics.org/club_sports/Club_Sports/Men-s_Rugby.

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