Women’s Division 2 – January 2026 Recap

It may be a new calendar year, but we’re only halfway through the USA Club Rugby 25-26 season. However, January does mark the start of league play in most of our warmer-weather regions. They will dominate the lion’s share of this article as competitions in the North have either finished or remain on winter break until the spring. We’ll still be sure to note what happened in the fall or what lies ahead for playoffs in those competitions. 

All of the information gathered for these articles come from the team-entered data on Rugby Xplorer. This means that the more accurate your team is about entering data, the more detail I can go into in these recaps. The power is in your hands. Or your team’s admin’s hands… If there does happen to be a mistake – feel free to reach out; I’m always in the interest of providing the most accurate information. Any additional commentary is added just for fun; from someone who has zero stake in the outcomes of these matches. 

Now that we’ve covered that (or skipped over it because you’re a regular reader of the monthly recaps), it’s time for some rugby! Let’s kick it off with what’s happened in the Women’s Division 2 Competition.

The Midwest Women’s D2 conference had their championship back in November, with the Milwaukee Scylla defeating South Buffalo in the final. Both the Scylla and South Buffalo will advance to the Northern Super Regional where they will take on the champions from Rocky Mountain and Mid-America. Until then – there’s not much to report on. If you want a full recap of the tail end of the playoff season, check out the November recap right here. 

The Mid-America region is done for the winter, with the St. Louis Sabres (5-0) finishing undefeated. It was a stunning season for the Sabres, who only allowed 34 points scored against them all season. It’s also a strong first step to returning to the Northern Super Regional and possibly beyond. Last year the Sabres fell by only three points to the Grand Rapids Growlers in the Super Regional final; now that the Growlers have gone D1, it’s all open for St. Louis. The Patriots (2-3) and the Omaha GOATS (2-3) had identical records and total table points at the end of the fall, however the Patriots won the head to head 41-21 back in September, which puts them in second overall. The GOATS finished third, while the KC Jazz (1-4) sits in fourth. Spring will bring playoff rugby to the Mid-America region, and it’s all on the Sabres to defend their MARFU title and advance back to the Super Regional. 

It looks like the regular season is all wrapped up in the Rocky Mountains as all the teams have played each other once. There’s still no playoff information posted, nor is there record of a playoff match taking place, so we aren’t positive if the top team is advancing directly to the regionals. 

The Colorado Springs Pikes Peaks (4-0) finished with a perfect record, taking down all that dared to face them. Only one team managed to get a bonus point in the loss to the Peaks, and that was Denver Black Ice (2-2) back at the start of October. Denver, however, dropped their season opener big to the Salt City SLUGs (3-1) who wrap up in second overall. If Rocky Mountain opts to have semifinals based on the current standings, the fourth team that would qualify would be the Littleton Lemons (1-3) who got their lone win of the season over the Boulder Babes (0-4). 

New England wrapped up their regular season competition in November, with Providence taking the title over Worcester. Providence will take on New Haven (the Empire champions – more info below) as well as the champions from Capital and the EPRU regions (still TBD) at the Atlantic Super Regional. 

The Empire region also crowned their champion in November. After a smashing of the Brooklyn Hyenas in the semifinal, New Haven pulled off the upset, defeating Danbury for a second time this year, clinching the Empire title and the qualification for the playoffs. It’s important to note that last year, the Empire champion had to play one final qualification match against the NERFU second-place team in order to get the bid to Super Regionals. So, not sure if that will happen again this year, but New Haven is definitely onto the next step. 

We’re only a little over halfway through Capital’s regular season this year, but it looks like it’s going to come down to James River (3-1) and Severn River (3-0). James River actually has the lead on the table right now, as they’ve played one more match. Severn is our last undefeated team left in the conference. Both Norfolk Storm (1-3) and NOVA (0-3) could make things really interesting at the end of the season, but they’d have to win the rest of their matches and have Severn River lose to James River on March 28th.

Games kick off on March 14th with Severn hosting NOVA before James River hosts NOVA the following weekend. 

We’ve got a handful of matches left in Eastern Pennsylvania, but one team has already booked their ticket to the EPRU final, Phoenixville White Horse (6-0). The team with the best chance of finishing second right now is Monmouth (4-1). They still have three games left to play, against Northeast Philly (2-4), Phoenixville, and Harrisburg (2-3). Harrisburg and Northeast Philadelphia are third and fourth on the table, tied on bonus points, but Harrisburg with one less match played. They both still have a shot if it all goes downhill for Monmouth in the spring. 

Games will kick back off on March 14th with Northeast Philadelphia hosting Monmouth and Harrisburg hosting White Horse. Doylestown (0-6) will be back on the hunt for the first win of their season on March 21st when they host Harrisburg.

We’ve got some solid updates from the Pacific Northwest Women’s D2 from the fall season, but are still waiting for a Spring 2026 schedule to drop. 

Currently the Portland Pigs (3-0) are on the top of the table, with an outstanding 196 point differential. More than half of those points come from their September 21st defeat of the Eugene Reign (0-3). The Seattle Orcas are also listed as 3-0 in Rugby Xplorer, but they follow the D1 post-season pathway, so we’re leaving them out of this conversation. 

The Bend Lady Roughriders (2-1) and the Emerald City Mudhens (2-2) are fighting it out for second and third place. The Mudhens defeated the Roughriders 29-24 when they played on September 28th, but kicked off their season against the two hardest teams (Portland and Seattle). So, while Bend and the Mudhens are tied on table points and bonus points, the Mudhens have a negative differential, which lists them lower on the table. Bend on the other hand, got their two wins at the end of the fall season; a narrow 15-14 defeat of the Steller Sea Lions (1-2) and a 38-12 defeat of the Reign. The Chuckanut Bay Mussels (1-1) opened their season with a win over the Sea Lions back in September, but no bonus points keeps them trailing in the standings. 

There’s definitely more matches to come, but nothing is posted yet. From the fall, it’s pretty clear that last year’s champions, the Portland Pigs, are again the team to beat.

The NorCal D1/D2 hybrid kicked off their season with a lone match back in November, and just started back up again at the end of this month. It’s not looking great for the Sacramento Amazons (0-2) who suffered another massive loss this month. This time, it was at the hands of Life West (1-0) who scored 98 points last weekend. Alia Simmonds scored four tries, including a pair back to back in the final minutes of the match; a pretty impressive feat, especially for a front-rower. Laura Bocek also got on the board three times for Life West, as well as adding eight conversions to the total. The lone points from Sacramento were from Emily Persson’s penalty goal at the start of the second half. A very tough start to the season for the Amazons. 

As the scoreline for this match was near-identical to the Blues’ win over Sacramento, it really just adds excitement for when Life West and Berkeley (1-0) go head to head. That’s going to be at the end of February, so we’ll cover it in the next recap. The Amazons have a bit of a reprieve until March, when they take on Life West and Berkeley in back to back weekends. 

Southern California returned to the 2026 USA Club competition with a full slate of matches to cover from January. There’s nine total teams playing in the Women’s D2 comp in SoCal, one less than last year. Santa Monica fielded sides in both D1 and D2 last season, but have pulled back, so we’ll only see them in our D1 recap.

Currently the West Coast Marines (3-0) are back on the throne, continuing their reign from last season. After defeating the Pasadena Royals in the final last year, the Marines were unable to attend the Pacific Super Regional due to Marine duty, and the Royals went in their place. So technically, this undefeated streak goes all the way back to 2025. They’ve taken down the Empire Monarchs (1-2), San Luis Obispo (1-2), and the Fullerton Wolfpack (0-3) so far, racking up a 167PD. 

Los Angeles Rugby Club (2-0) and San Fernando (2-0) are the other two undefeated teams left in the comp. LARC started their season with an impressive 26-22 defeat of the Pasadena Royals (2-1) on the 17th, and followed it up with a 57-21 defeat of the Wolfpack. Pasadena are technically second on the table thanks to the bonus points they got in that loss, as they have one more match played than LARC. San Fernando eked out the narrowest of wins over Ventura County (1-1) when they opened their season on January 11th. San Fernando looked pretty confident the entire match, taking the lead into the halftime break, but Ventura County scored two quick tries through Adriana Liang and Esja Shriver in the 68th and 72nd minute to bring the score to 31-29. The last ten minutes was hectic as Ventura County tried to score one more and San Fernando were desperate on defense, but the scoreline held and San Fernando came away with the win. Their second win was much more cut and dry, defeating the Empire Monarchs the following weekend. 

Ventura County won their second match of the season with another close one over the Santa Barbara Mermaids (0-3). The Mermaids got two bonus points in the 31-24 loss, bringing their total to four already this season. This ties them with SLO on the table, who technically has a better record. However, in the head to head, SLO topped the Mermaids 50-27. 

There’s more action to come next month. The Marines will host Ventura County on February 7th, while the Mermaids host Fullerton. San Fernando will take on the Pasadena Royals, the winner of that one will move ahead in the standings. Perhaps the biggest match of the month will be when LARC and the Marines go head to head on the 21st. The winner of that one holds a strong chance of topping the league this year.

We had two matches in January, both solid match-ups. Phoenix (2-0) clocked their second win of the season, defeating Old Pueblo Lightning (1-2) 39-29. Jane LeRoy scored three tries for Phoenix in the win, adding to her one from the first game, bringing her season total to four. Old Pueblo also clocked a win in January, defeating the Lady Landsharks (1-1) 34-19. Mary Monnard and Allison Byrne both scored two tries in the win, while Monnard added the conversions. The Albuquerque Atomic Sisters will kick off their spring campaign on February 7th, when they host Phoenix and Las Vegas (1-1) will enter the picture on February 14th when they host Albuquerque. 

This league started back in the fall, but only three matches were played before the winter break. The Birmingham Steel (2-0) looks good, starting off their season with two wins over the Chattanooga Queens (0-1) and the Nashville Stone Lions (0-1) in October. The Knoxville Minx (1-0) also kicked off their season with a win over the Lions in November.

There’s one match to look forward to in February, with the Knoxville Minx hosting the Steel on Valentine’s Day. Outside of that we are waiting for March to see the Queens and the Stone Lions jump back into action. There’s not a lot of games in this division, so every match needs to be played like the league final. 

While the majority of the matches in January were the D1 teams in this hybrid competition, we did see some action from the D2 sides, including the San Antonio Riveters (0-1) kicking off their season. It was a tough start for San Antonio, who had to travel to play the D1 sHARCs on January 10th. The score ended 76-0 in favor of Houston, which was solid considering that San Antonio only traveled with 17 players. Little Rock (2-0) continued their winning ways when they traveled to play the D2 sHARCs (0-2) last weekend. 15 tries were scored in the 89-0 rout, with Maddison Roncketto, Leah Ozersky, and Laura Edmonson all scoring hat tricks for the Stormers. 

There’s a few cross-conference matches coming up in February, the D2 sHARCs travel to the Austin Valkyries on February 7th while Little Rock hosts the Dallas Quins. Little Rock will also host the San Antonio Riveters on February 14th in a D2 head to head. 

There were two matches scheduled for January in the Carolinas, but those were postponed due to the snowstorm that swept the region. Currently Charlotte (5-0) and the Atlanta 2.0 Selects (4-0) are undefeated in their respective regions. The Augusta Furies (3-1) are close behind in the West, their match against Fear the Maniacs (3-2) was one of the postponed games. That’s an important match heading into playoff crunch time as Fear currently sits second in the East. Our third-place teams were also scheduled to go head to head, with the Savannah Shamrocks (2-2) scheduled to host the Fayetteville Valkyries (3-2). 

There’s still a full slate of matches to be played in February and March before we get to the final four, and everyone is still in the mix. We’ll look forward to those rescheduled games in February, as well as the Charlotte vs Atlanta 2.0 match-up scheduled for February 14th.

Florida Women’s D2 competition kicked off this past month with five matches to cover. The Tampa Krewe (2-0) are currently top of the table and already the only undefeated team left in the league. They started their season with a resounding 74-12 defeat of Orlando (1-1) and followed it up with a 57-7 defeat of Fort Miami (1-2). Emily Rahija and Antonina O’Neill scored two tries apiece in both games for Tampa Krewe, proving that Tampa’s got firepower in both the forwards and the backline. 

Fort Miami has started a step slower than they did last season when they made it to the final against Tampa. They dropped their opening match to Jacksonville (1-1) 26-24. They managed to get two bonus points in the loss thanks to two tries from Sydnee Meriwether to keep them within seven and adding to their four try total. They closed out the month with a big win over the Hammerheads (0-1) 69-7; so perhaps they just needed a couple of weeks to get the train rolling. 

Jacksonville and Orlando are both 1-1, but Orlando won the head to head back on the 24th, so they are a step higher in the standings. The Hammerheads are bottom of the table, but with only one game played, that makes sense. There’s way more action to come this month – Jacksonville will host the Hammerheads, Fort Miami will take on Orlando, and Tampa will finish with three home games in a row.