After building a 6-1 record during the league regular season, an injury-plagued and inexperienced Denver rugby club bowed out of the Frontier League playoffs in early March.

The no. 12 Pioneers graduated 12 seniors from last year’s team, and were beleaguered by injuries to nine starters throughout the season.

Denver fell to in-state competition no. 11 Colorado School of Mines 30-22 March 7 in the semifinals of the Frontier League Playoffs.

The two teams were scheduled to play in the regular season, but the game was cancelled due to inclement weather conditions.

“Overcoming that amount of injuries would be hard for any team,” said freshman Zach Ziegler, who was out for much of the season with a rugby-related shoulder injury.

“In a physical sport, you roll the dice on who is going to be playing at the end of the year. Underachieved would be a bad way to say it. Unfortunate is a better word. Injuries decimated everything,” Ziegler added.

School of Mines, the eventual Eastern Rockies runner-up, went on to lose in the Cowboy Cup to New Mexico Highlands University.

The early exit was uncharacteristic for head coach Allan Wilson’s team, which finished in the top four the last two years (fourth place in 2013, third in 2014) in the Men’s Small College National Playoffs, and compiled a 34-6 record through three seasons.

Denver played in a 7s tournament this past weekend in Fort Collins in hopes of qualifying for the Men’s 7s National Tournament.

“We have potential, with a fast back line and good athletic kids,” said Coach Wilson. “We’ll see. We haven’t trained as much. We’re lucky to have had three weeks to train for the tournament. We’ll see how it goes.”