The top seeded Brandeis men's rugby club won its opening round game in the New England Rugby Football Union playoffs, outlasting eighth seeded Green Mountain College 17-15 at home on Saturday. The Judges led the whole game and held off a late Green Mountain rally to advance the semifinals against Nichols College in Vermont. The Judges are 5-1.With Green Mountain shuttown shutting down Brandeis for most of the second half, the visitors trailed only 17-12 early in the second half and advanced the ball well throughout the half, but the Judges played excellent tri- zone defense. With four minutes left and Green mountain making their final push, the visitors broke away from a ruck and a single runner advanced the ball two-thirds of the field and looked poised to score. But the lone runner was cut down about 10 yards from the tri zone to prevent the score.

The Judges just tried to play defense for the remaining minutes, but Green Mountain still would not give up. The ball remained deep in Brandeis territory, and Green Mountain was able to score when the ball came lose in the tri zone with just 30 seconds remaining in the game. With Green Mountain mouting having the chance to tie on a conversion kick, the kicker sent the ball wide right.

The Judges had taken control in the first three minutes of the game, nearly scoring twice on Green Mountain. Two minutes later, Noah Foster '06 scored and Josh Sugarman '05 made his conversion kick to give the Judges an early 7-0 lead. Dan Tress '07 also scored and Sugarman missed a conversion, leaving the Judges with a 12-0 lead.

With three minutes left in the half, Green Mountain scored its first tri of the day and following a successful conversion, trailed only 12-7 going into halftime.

Brandeis opened the second half the way it had the first, but this time they were able to score, putting another tri on the board in the first minute of play courtesy of Sugarman, putting the Judges up 17-7. Just four minutes after Brandeis scored, Green Mountain had another tri but missed a kick that would come back to haunt them and trailed 17-12 before the Judges' spectacular tri-zone defense kicked in.

Next week, the Judges take on Nichols College in the semifinals. Nichols is the only team the Judges lost to this season.

"We need to be more aggressive in defense and hate them for beating us, coach John Dalton said. "The only negative has been our failure to learn from mistakes.