{"id":6249,"date":"2016-11-07T21:03:42","date_gmt":"2016-11-07T21:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2016\/11\/11\/champions-again\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T14:54:12","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T18:54:12","slug":"champions-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/champions-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions Again!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Furman broke open a tight game in the second half to defeat UNC-Charlotte 44-20 Sunday and capture the team\u2019s second Southern Rugby Conference (SRC) Championship.<\/p>\n<p>RJ Bradley, Jacob Milchuck, Jeffrey Rein, Dylan Bostock and Hunter Branch all found the try zone to help the Paladins run their fall record to 10-0. It was beautiful day at packed Roberts Field Sunday as dozens of Furman alumni who were in town for Homecoming and the inaugural meeting of the Furman Rugby Foundation cheered their team to victory.<\/p>\n<p>More importantly, the win sets up home field advantage for the Paladins in the USA Rugby South Regional, which will be held at Furman Nov. 19-20. \u00a0Ranked fourth in the nation by two polls, Furman will face Sacred Heart in the first round of the South Regional. The full brackets have been <a href=\"http:\/\/www.goffrugbyreport.com\/news\/dii-brackets-finalized-almost\">posted online<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The winner of that four-team regional will move on to the Men\u2019s Division II Final Four which will be part of\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usarugby.org\/2016\/10\/fall-college-playoffs-to-peak-in-greenville-s-c\/\">USA Rugby\u2019s Championship Weekend Dec. 3-4<\/a>. For the fourth consecutive year Furman has hosted the event which also includes fall championship games for Women\u2019s Div. I and II and Men\u2019s D1AA.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a really nice path before us. To be eliminated, someone will have to beat us on our home pitch,\u201d said Furman Coach John Roberts.<\/p>\n<p>Furman captured Div. III national championships in 2003, 2004, 2005 and finished runner up in 2007 and 2008. The Paladins moved up to Div. II in 2010. Should Furman claim the DII title, they would be the first program to capture both Div. III and Div. II national championships.<\/p>\n<p>Furman has outscored its opponents 515-80 this fall. The team\u2019s closest game was Oct. 6, a 13-5 victory over UNCC. In Sunday\u2019s SRC Final, the Paladins led only 15-10 at halftime but made some adjustments that proved the difference in the final forty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe played a bit scattered on offense in the first half,\u201d said Furman Coach John Roberts. \u201cWhen we did kick we did so to their strength and UNCC took advantage. In the second half we limited our kicking.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Furman scored two trys in the opening 12 minutes of the second half to build a 29-10 lead. UNCC added a try and penalty kick in the second half but could not contain a more relaxed and fluid Furman offense.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have a very good system, and if we run it correctly we can wear down teams,\u201d said Roberts. \u201cWe also have some really good depth and that is something we have lacked in recent years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-28136 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/218\/2022\/08\/11.06-finals4.jpg\" alt=\"11-06-finals4\" width=\"780\" height=\"520\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 780px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 780\/520;\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Furman broke open a tight game in the second half to defeat UNC-Charlotte 44-20 Sunday and capture the team\u2019s second Southern Rugby Conference (SRC) Championship. RJ Bradley, Jacob Milchuck, Jeffrey [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":16410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,25,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","category-rugby","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}