The University of Minnesota-Duluth Fighting Penguins claimed the 2014 Emirates Airline USA Rugby Men’s Division II College National Championship title last Sunday at the Furman University campus in Greenville, S.C.

 

The win included an exciting, come-from-behind victory over University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, 24-14.

 

Becker High School grad Andrew Buntrock was instrumental in the back-to-back titles and was named Aircraft Charter Solutions Player of the Week.

 

Andrew "Teddy" Buntrock was all about playing defense and winning ball and not worrying too much about who scored the tries - just that they got scores.

 

“Andy has been a great leader for our team,” said UMD Head Coach Jeramy Katchuba. “He has a tremendous work rate for a second row and takes care of a lot of the little things that don’t always get noticed. He has been a big part of the engine that has been making the pack so strong the past three years.”

 

Buntrock was a football and hockey player at Becker and when he arrived at Duluth, he was thinking about walking on with the football team. A friend suggested he try rugby, and the rest is history. The senior journalism major never looked back.

 

“I kind of fell in love with the sport at the first practice,” said the 6-4 second row. “I just love playing it. I love being on this team. Winning this year was huge for us. It’s a whole new feeling. We won last year but to come back and show we could do it two years in a row kind of proved some things.”

 

The reigning champ Penguin’s game against Wisconsin-Whitewater was not a stroll in the park. Duluth started strong and opened the scoring in the fifth minute with a try from fullback Austin Haecherl. The conversion was missed however. Whitewater quickly answered, sending Brandon Lopez over the line. Timothy Grams converted the kick to put Whitewater into the lead.

 

Midway through the first half, Duluth found themselves behind at 14-5 and the defense turned up their efforts to keep Wisconsin at bay the rest of the way.

 

In the second half, MVP Jake Luetgers got things going for the Penguins on the first play of the second half, running over 50 meters and diving over the line to put Duluth back in the game. The try proved to be a momentum shifter and the key turning point may well have been Duluth’s defensive stand at 14-10. The Penguins would score twice more in the half and held Whitewater to zero tries despite a yellow card.

 

Wisconsin-Whitewater had secured their spot in the final after beating Notre Dame College 26-10  while UMD won a decisive victory over James Madison University, 47-24.

 

“Whitewater gave us as tough of a game as we’ve had all season,” said Buntrock. “We had to handle that and make adjustments. But we did. We knew at halftime that we could play better. Our defense had been lacking and we needed to get back to what we do well. That defensive stand was huge, and it felt great to hold them out. And we did it by working together.”

 

Buntrock is working toward Bachelors in writing studies with a journalism emphasis and bachelors in linguistics degrees.