NOTRE DAME, Ind. - The Iowa Central rugby team battled against the nation's best here recently at the Fighting Irish Invitational hosted by Notre Dame.

After a tough opening round setback, the Tritons worked their way through the Survivor Cup bracket of the event, placing second. 

Indiana earned the automatic qualifier bid to the Collegiate Rugby Championship May Madness 7s event in New Orleans at the end of May. Iowa Central will compete later this spring in hopes of either securing an automatic bid through other qualifiers, or earning an at-large selection.

The Tritons picked up wins over IUPUI and Christendom during bracket play in the Survivor Cup before coming up short against Western Michigan in the finals.

"When you have a young team like we do, learning how to play and battle through a long day of rugby is important," Iowa Central head coach Brent Nelson said. "I felt like in the first match with Michigan State, we weren't mentally prepared to play. The conditions were not great with snow and cold turning to ice later in the day, but we really showed our toughness coming through the Survivor Cup.

"That can be almost as tough as the actual tournament. You have to learn to come back after a loss and continue to compete, and I thought our guys did a great job of that. Assistant coaches (Joe) Lippert and Hamish (McCallion) kept them physically and mentally ready throughout the day."

In the finals against Western Michigan, who Iowa Central met for the 2015 national title, the Broncos took a 17-12 lead late in the match. The Tritons, though, answered to force overtime.

"We had to work the ball down the field without any mistakes and score and convert to win," Nelson said. "We scored, but we didn't get the conversion and went to sudden victory. There, after a couple of phases, Western Michigan got a score and that was the end of it.

"It's always tough to lose, especially after battling back to reach that point. To me, though, we learned a lot and gained a lot of confidence in our play with what we were able to do."

Nelson noted the play of Gus Sokol, Dakota Southworth, Ruben Scholtz and Chris Santos during the day.

"Gus came back and is taking classes to play 7s even though he didn't have to," Nelson said. "It's really awesome to see him having so much success. Dakota is one of our best players and had a great day before getting hurt. We were without him against Western Michigan, and I was proud of how everybody stepped up.

"Ruben and Chris really did a lot of great things for us."

Adrian won the qualifier shield with Michigan winning the survivor Bowl. Kutztown was the qualifier plate winner and Notre Dame the survivor plate winner during the event.

Iowa Central will host Lindenwood this Saturday in 15s with both an A-side and B-side set. Action begins at the Crimmins Building at 1 p.m. 

-By Dana Becker