As soon as the game ended in Holuba Hall on March 5, the Penn State rugby team knew that it would be a team of marked men.

It has been three weeks since the Ruggers defeated top-ranked Army, and they are still using the win as a barometer for their season heading into the Mid -Atlantic Rugby Football Union (MARFU) playoffs.

So is every other team.

"The win proved to us that we are now one of the top dogs in rugby on the East Coast," Ruggers captain Timmy Ryland said. "All the teams are looking to knock us off."

The match may have only been a scrimmage, but it counted in everyone's eyes almost as a playoff match.

The two teams would only have to play each other in the round of eight if both advanced that far in Nationals.

Beating Army proved to Penn State that it is good enough to compete with any team, confidence that should be useful as the Ruggers head to the University of Virginia for the MARFU playoffs.

The Penn State-Virginia match is set for 2 p.m. tomorrow at the Mad Bowl, three weeks since the Army win.

But the team still had to hit the field practice to fix what made the 20-15 win against Army a close one.

"We needed to work on tightening on our defense and set plays," Ryland said. "Defense mostly is what the coaches have been riding us about in practice."

The Ruggers head into the playoff game with unranked Virginia as the seventh-ranked team in the country and second in the Mid-Atlantic region.

Ryland mentioned Virginia's hard running centers and strong pack as issues that the team needed to work on in practice.

"They have a really strong pack that can be a concern," Ryland said. "But ours is smarter, faster, and better than theirs, and it should be a good match-up."

One way to compare Virginia and Penn State heading into the first round would be to compare each team's win against Trent University of Ontario this season.

Virginia defeated Trent in a 12-3 win that was not as close as the score might indicate.

Penn State defeated Trent 45-0 in a game that was decided in the first 10 minutes.

The Ruggers received scores by Mike Petri and Mike Sell in the victory. The two also scored in the Army win.

The time off since the team's last game against Texas A&M on March 7 has helped the Ruggers return several key players from injury.

Petri is coming off injuries to both shoulders from the Army and Trent games.

Ryland said the team needs to feed off the Army win coming into the playoffs but that the team can play a better game this weekend.

"The win gave us all a hint of what we can do in the spring," Ryland said. "We beat one of the best teams in the country but we haven't even reached our full potential.

"We can do better."