Yesterday the Blues and the rest of the Midwest Premiership completed the 2023 Fall regular season. (The write up and summary for that game will be out this week). With the last points being registered the final standings and playoff picture is now set.
Your Kansas City Blues finished second in the Eastern Conference. This secures a playoff spot and we will now travel to the first place finisher in the Western Conference, which was up in the air until yesterday afternoon. First place Cincinnati, second place Detroit and third place Chicago Griffins all remained in playoff contention going into the last weekend.
The setup was this. First and second place Cincinnati and Detroit played in Cincinnati. The winner would finish first place. If Detroit won, Cincinnati would finish second. If Cincinnati won then Detroit would need a bonus point to maintain second place over Chicago (presuming Chicago wins and secured a bonus point over last place Cleveland.)
As the boys watched the World Cup Final at the after watch with the Bombers at Columbo’s Bar, word started to spread around the room with both teams waiting to hear their playoff futures. “Cincy won”… “no bonus point”. As expected the Griffons had achieved a bonus point win over Cleveland. Cincinnati had beat Detroit and Detroit had failed to get their bonus point. The most complicated playoff scenario had happened. The Blues get Cincy. STL gets the Griffins. Phones came out and some flights were purchased. “We’re on to Cincinnati.”
In addition to the trip to Cincinnati we also are preparing for a trip to Chicago. Announced by USA Rugby and the Midwest Premierships is a Spring Nationals Playoff Structure. There will be a Regionals weekend in Denver in May. Our regional will consist of three berths from the Midwest and 1 from the Rocky Mountain league. Thus, there will be a 3rd place match along with the Final for the Midwest in Chicago on November 11th. The third place game will decide the third and final placement for regionals, who moves on and who doesn’t.
We have not had the pleasure is asking our Alumni for playoff assistance since 2019. We are extremely excited to do so now and we hope that our supporters are excited to receive such an announcement. We have felt the love all season, enjoying crowds that dwarf the showings when we travel. We hope that you all have enjoyed following along this season and we hope to provide two more weekends of excitement this fall, and at least one next spring. As you all know, these travel weekends are expensive for the club and any support would be greatly appreciated.
Finally, we would like to thank the people that have made this season a success so far. Our coaching staff, our players, the board and our support staff. A lot of time is put into making a season happen. It is extremely gratifying to see it result in postseason opportunities and we appreciate every persons efforts that were put into making it happen.
To Donate to the Blues playoff travel, please click the button above or go to our Donation page and click on the Make A One-Time Gift" button.
