Game Summary | Game Stats

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. – For a second straight week Davenport faced a top ten team in Bowling Green and for a second straight week Davenport came out on top. The Panthers jumped out to a 27 point lead at the half and cruised to a 60-12 win over the Falcons. Davenport will travel to Michigan State next weekend for their regular season finale.

Prior to the game, Davenport received their National Championship rings from a year ago.

Bowling Green came out tough and had a good chance to put points on the board early but couldn't convert the penalty kick.

It took several minutes for the Panther offense to get warmed up but once they did, they were off and running. Just under eight minutes into the game, Davenport got on the board with a try by Bryan Ray, his second try of the season. Jean Pierre Eloff couldn't knock in the conversion, his only miss of the day.

Four minutes later, Angus MacLellan pushed the Davenport lead out to 12 with the try and conversion by Eloff. However, Bowling Green responded a few minutes later with their first and only try of the day to cut the lead to seven.

After the Bowling Green score with 24 minutes remaining in the half, Davenport outscored the Falcons 20-0. Ryan Hargraves and Erin Hillary each added tries during this run. JP Eloff made both conversions and two penalty kicks to give him 12 points at the break.

Just before the half, Davenport caught another break when Bowling Green missed their second penalty kick of the day.

To start the second half the Panthers came out firing with a Travis Kamstra try just minutes into play to increase the lead to 39-5. With a Bowling Green try in between, Erin Hillary scored the next two tries for Davenport. After a couple of successful conversions by Eloff the Davenport lead had grown to 53-12.

Gabe Sochanek added a try with 2:30 to make the final 60-12 Davenport.

Davenport improves to 6-0 overall and 5-0 in conference. With the win, Davenport clinches the number one seed in the Midwest Rugby Eastern Conference tournament that will take place in a couple weeks. Davenport will conclude their regular season next Saturday against Michigan State in East Lansing, Mich.

Post-Game Quotes – Head Coach Kruger Van Biljon

Thoughts on game: “Going into the game we knew we had to bring it to them, they are a very physical side and we took a beating today in that aspect. Otherwise I am pretty happy with our structures, we gave up two easy tries that I'm not happy about but that is something that we will go and fix and get ready for Michigan State next week.”

On beating a Bowling Green team that had given DU problems in the past: “They lost a couple seniors and have a few new kids and we didn't lose many players from the National Championship squad. We are in the situation that they were in the last few years and hopefully we can keep it up.”

On teams confidence after beating Miami Ohio and Bowling Green: “We have a lot of confidence but I tell the guys that there is a fine line between being confident and being cocky. We just have to make sure that we don't breach that line. But our confidence is building and we are playing as a team and that is what we need. Hopefully they can keep gaining confidence but not breach that line.”

Post-Game Notes

This is just the second win for Davenport against Bowling Green…In conference games, Davenport has outscored their opponents by 273 points…The Panther defense hasn't allowed a team to score more than 15 points in any game this season.