Men’s Division 1 – February 2026 Recap

The shortest month of the year has come and gone, but that doesn’t mean we have any less rugby to catch up on. The action primarily took place in the Gulf Coast and the Pacific regions, so the bulk of the new information will be in those sections; however I have updated some of the Northern and Atlantic sections as more information about playoffs has come to light. Some sections are the same as the last recap (looking at you snow-covered regions) but they had their glory back in the fall; if you really miss them, go ahead and read the old recaps in the archive. 

Disclaimer – 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. 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. 

For those of you ready to catch up on the new and exciting action, wait no longer, here is the USA Rugby Club recap covering the Men’s Division 1 competition!

No news in the Midwest. The Chicago Lions defeated the St. Louis Bombers back in November to earn their spot in the National Final Four, but they’ve still got a ways to go before they find out who they are playing. For more information about how this season wrapped up – check out the November Recap!

Nothing has changed from the last recap; the next thing on our calendar is the semifinals scheduled for April 11th. Schuylkill River (4-2) will host NOVA (4-2) and Rocky Gorge (4-1-1) will host the Potomac Exiles (3-1-2). 

Schuylkill and NOVA last went head to head on October 11th, with Schuylkill taking the win 50-33. The two have identical records and identical table points, the only difference is the overall point differential; Schuylkill has +92 while NOVA only has +27. In the regular season, Schuylkill lost to the Potomac Exiles and the Washington Irish while NOVA took their second loss from Rocky Gorge. As far as National Championship experience goes, both have had their opportunities. Schuylkill were National runners-up in 2022, but NOVA made the trip to the final four in 2024. Schuylkill won the Mid-Atlantic last year, but NOVA won the 7s National title this year. Based on the stats, it’s going to be a pretty solid match-up.

The other semifinal pits top of the table Rocky Gorge against the Potomac Exiles. Now when those two faced off on September 27th, it was a 14-14 tie. Doesn’t get much closer than that. Rocky Gorge had that one loss at the end of the season to Schuylkill, but they already wrapped up the top seed by that point, so how much stake can we put in that match? Potomac not only tied Rocky Gorge, they also tied Baltimore Chesapeake (who finished sixth overall) the weekend before. Their one loss of the season came at the hands of NOVA, back on opening weekend. This semifinal is also a rematch of last year’s semifinal, where the Exiles took the win over the higher-ranked Rocky Gorge 24-17. Back in 2023, the two played in the semi again, that time Rocky Gorge taking the win 17-15. Both semifinals are sure to provide edge of your seat action.

We finally saw our D1 heavyweights go head to head this past month, and it was pretty one-sided. Life West (5-0) scored first through Mosiah Saulala, just a minute into the match, converted by Louis Penent. Olympic Club (2-2) got on the board next, by a penalty goal from Kealan O’Connell. O’Connell added another a few minutes later to make it 7-6, but that’s as close as it would get. Life West opened the floodgates with a number of back to back tries, and by the time halftime hit, it was too big of a deficit to come back from. O-Club would eventually score a try in the middle of the second half, but there was nothing to stop the onslaught of the Gladiators. Final score was 82-11 to Life West. 

With a scoreline like that, you’d expect that Life West has run train on the D2 clubs in this hybrid league, but that’s not the case. At the start of the month, Life West was lucky to sneak by D2 Sacramento, allowing them two bonus points in the 42-35 win. Then just this past weekend they faced D2 Santa Rosa. While a more comfortable win than Sacramento, they still allowed Santa Rosa a bonus point for scoring over four tries, final score 73-41. Olympic Club, on the other hand, put up a massive scoreline against D2 San Jose on February 7th, final score 143-0. That’s 21 tries, or one about every four minutes. 

We’re not sure if Olympic Club and Life West will have one more head to head battle before deciding who advances to the Pacific Super Regional, or if Life West has already secured that berth. There’s a few more regular season matches left for both sides, against the rest of the D2 teams in this hybrid league. On March 7th Olympic Club hosts Sacramento; given how Sacramento stacked up against Life West, this might be another D2 upset in this league. 

We only had one match this past month in the Pacific Northwest, and that was the Seattle Orcas (2-0) hosting the D2 Bend Roughriders. Both Seattle and Boise play D2 teams in the regular season, but the games that count are against each other. Twice in the fall Seattle defeated Boise in a strong start to qualifying for the Pacific Super Regional. However, they play each other again twice in the spring, so all these interdivisional matches can be looked at as warm-ups to prep for the big show. 

Both Seattle and Boise will have matches on March 7th before they face off in Idaho on March 14th. Two weeks later they will have their final showdown in Washington to determine who will advance to the playoffs. 

Down in Southern California we have three rounds left of the regular season, and boy is it spicy. 

At the top of the table we have OMBAC (6-0-1) and Belmont Shore (6-0-1) who both added two wins to their record in February, keeping them neck and neck on the table. As they tied each other, the only difference in these sides is the point differential, which is currently +250 for OMBAC and +242 for Belmont Shore. It’s going to come down to a photo finish. Thank goodness we don’t have to wait too long for them to go head to head, that’s coming up this weekend on March 7th! This time the home field advantage is going to OMBAC, who is juuuuuuust ahead in the standings. Barring any other losses against different opponents in March, the winner will take the top seed into the playoffs. 

Eagle Rock (3-4) are moving up the rankings thanks to a decent February shift. They defeated Oceanside (1-6) 62-35 on the 7th and the Old Aztecs (2-5) 57-25 just this past weekend. They also had a loss to OMBAC in there, but hey, so does almost everyone else in this league. Their next match is against Santa Monica (2-5) who has forfeited the last two games of this past month.

The Old Aztecs are in fourth overall, but have been on a 3-match loss streak that’s spanned all of this past month. They did get a forfeit win thanks to Santa Monica from February 21st, but their last played win was back in January over Oceanside, 31-30. They’ll rematch against the Chiefs on the 14th, but then have to finish their season off against Belmont and OMBAC for their last two matches.

Santa Monica are somehow still holding onto fifth over the Oceanside Chiefs, who have just moved up from D2 into the hardest D1 Men’s competition in the country (my opinion and no I’m not taking other views). Despite a record of 1-6, Oceanside has still been making waves, scoring an average of 32 points per match. I guess that’s where all those bonus points come from. There is something to be said about West Coast rugby, they sure do love their tries out here.

Coming up in March we’ve got three more weekends of action. I can’t even begin to list the good games in this division because every game is a good one. Obviously look out for OMBAC hosting Belmont on the 7th, the top of the table is on the line so expect those two to be playing their best rugby of the season. 

With only two or three matches left in the regular season for the five clubs in the Texas Premiership, the temperatures are definitely heating up. 

The Austin Blacks (6-0) went three for three this month, defeating the Dallas RFC (4-2) twice and the Austin Huns (2-3) once. They took down Dallas a combined 97-25 with their back to back fixtures on February 14th and 21st, the first match rescheduled from January. They followed this up with a 32-14 defeat of the Austin Huns, which secures them a spot in the final playoff match regardless of how their last two games play out.

The Dallas RFC got one step closer to securing their place in the final this weekend with a 32-20 defeat of the Dallas Harlequins (1-4). This was the fifth match on the hop for Dallas, who suffered back to back defeats to the Austin Blacks earlier in the month. The Quins definitely brought their A-game, and at one point the score was 22-20, but Dallas managed to stay ahead of the curve and nab the bonus point win. Dallas have two matches left and while it would be easier to qualify if they win both, they could theoretically lose both and still qualify (more on that below). 

The Austin Huns are hanging by a thread as far as final playoff qualification goes. Their 33-24 defeat of the Dallas Harlequins on February 7th keeps them alive, despite losing to the Austin Blacks this past weekend. Currently they are on 10 points – if they can win the last three games they’ll be up to 22 (without any bonus points). If Dallas RFC loses their last two games without getting bonus points, they stay at 21, giving the Huns the bid to the final. Any way you cut it, the Huns have to win their next match against the Dallas RFC in order to keep the dream alive.

The Dallas Harlequins logged their first win of the season this past month, an impressive 55-3 win over HARC (0-4). Zack Jackson scored four for the Quins, three in less than ten minutes surrounding the halftime break while Zachary Smith and Evan Conlon added the extras. With their loss this past weekend to the Dallas RFC, they are mathematically out for the playoffs, but still have three matches left in their season, ending with two home games against the Huns and HARC. 

Our final team HARC are still on the hunt for their first win in D1. It’s been a tough season for the newbies, who have only played half of their matches. They still have to face the other four teams one more time before they can call it time and take some well-earned rest. That’s also four more opportunities to grab a win, and maybe a late streak is in the cards for HARC.

The big game coming up is when the Huns host the Dallas RFC on March 7th; major playoff implications on that one. The season-ender HARC versus the Quins will also be a spicy one; that one’s on the 28th. There will be one final playoff match between the top two sides in April, exact details still TBD. 

Last I left you, the Miami Tridents (0-3) had forfeited their two league matches in January against D2 opponents, which was not an excellent start. Well, I don’t have many updates, but RX does show that the Tridents took the pitch back on February 7th. Unfortunately, it ended as a 33-31 loss to the D2 Tampa Krewe, but still a decent performance by Miami. Now I’ve heard the rumor mill turning that the Tridents will opt out of the D1 postseason pathway, but nothing has been confirmed via the SCC meeting minutes, so until then it remains a rumor and you’re not allowed to blame me for spreading it. The Tridents’ next match is scheduled for March 21st hosting Boca Raton.