Women’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 Women’s Division 1 competition!

The Midwest Women’s D1 competition finished in November with Chicago North Shore defeating the Pittsburgh Forge in the final. This means that North Shore will advance to take on the Rocky Mountain Champion for the Northern seed to the National Final Four. It’s going to be a tough match for Chicago, who has to hit the ground running without many spring warm-ups, but as the game isn’t until May, they’ve still got time to figure that out.

Over in the Rockies, there is one final game for the regular season left to be played between the Utah Vipers (3-0) and the Colorado Gray Wolves (0-3). The result won’t change the standings, as the Vipers have already done the damage needed to secure first overall. We’re unsure if there will be a final qualification match in the spring in order to proceed to the Northern Super Regional, but even if there is – it’s going to be hard to top the defending National Champions. 

We’re getting closer to the return of the Atlantic D1 Women’s competition, with games resuming on March 21st. There’s still a lot of questions in this league, as every team still has a chance to crack into the top four heading into playoffs. 

Philadelphia (4-0) and NOVA (4-0) are the most secure in their current position. With only two matches left to play, they are both mathematically in for playoffs*. It’s deadly close between these two at the top, Philadelphia has a slight edge in the standings with a +244PD, but NOVA’s PD is +237, and they’re closing the gap quickly. The big game of the season for these two will be on March 28th, when Philadelphia hosts NOVA.

New York (3-2) are next on the table, but are also the only team to have played five of their six league matches. If they win their final match of the season against the Atlanta Harlequins (0-3), they are in*. If they lose, it all depends on how everyone else finished, but they still have a pretty solid shot. 

The DC Furies (2-2) will return in April to make one final push to qualify for the postseason. They must travel to NOVA on April 4th before making the trek up to Boston (0-3) on the 11th. The good news is that they’ll likely know the do or die scenario by that point, as April 11th is the final weekend for regular season matches.

Then we hit the bottom of the table; our three 0-3 sides: the Atlanta Harlequins, the Raleigh Venom, and Boston. The fall season didn’t go particularly well for any of these sides, but with only half of their matches played, they all still have the opportunity to make some magic happen and upset DC or New York. Sure, they’d have to win all three matches and hope that those teams lose all their matches, but it’s possible. The Atlanta Harlequins and the Raleigh Venom will make their first move on this front on March 21st, opening the spring season for the Atlantic region. The weekend after, Boston will host the Harlequins, the furthest travel required in this league. If both Raleigh and Boston defeat the Quins, the next step will be winning their head to head on April 4th, hosted by Raleigh. Even after that, whoever wins (if they also defeated Atlanta) would have to win their final match AND hope that DC or New York lost all their spring games. That’s a lot of ifs. 

Only one month left to wait before the action kicks off, we’ll see you on March 21st. 

*assuming the top four advance to regional playoffs

For the most part, Seattle (4-0) has been playing up in the BC Premiership this season, though they did have a match this past weekend hosting the Bend Lady Roughriders (2-2). Either way, as the only current D1 Women’s side in the Pacific Northwest they are guaranteed the slot to advance to the D1 postseason at the Pacific Super Regional.

February saw the end of the BC Premiership for Seattle, who finished 1-6 in that league. Their games this month had them falling 85-7 against the Castaway Wanderers and 60-22 against the UBCOB Ravens. Not a great end to the season, but they turned it around when they came back to the US and defeated Bend 46-10 at home. Seven different players scored for Seattle in the win, including two tries from PJ Tillmann. 

So far there’s nothing else posted on the schedule for the Orcas, but we do know they will advance to Henderson, NV on April 24th to push for their shot at Nationals. 

There was only one match in February, the hotly contested top of the table clash between the Berkeley All Blues (2-0) and Life West (1-1). It’s not very clear who is electing for a D1 versus D2 postseason pathway in this competition, but I would assume Life West and Berkeley are both going for D1 while the Sacramento Amazons (0-2) go for D2. Don’t quote me on that though. 

Both Life West and Berkeley have easily dispatched the Zons this season, with differentials of about 90 points per match. So we were excited to see them go head to head, and it absolutely delivered. Ceara Lafferty scored first for Berkeley with Lauren Racioppi converting. However Mona Tupou scored almost immediately after for Life West, bringing the score to 7-5 where it stayed for the majority of the first half. Life West scored just before the break, converting to tie it, but Berkeley matched them before the whistle blew, slotting a second conversion to take the lead into the break 14-12. Nicola Lynch scored out of the gates for Life West as the second half kicked off, changing the lead again, but the All Blues had to answer back. D’Ondra Bomar dove over around 60 minutes to give the lead back to Life West 24-21 and it remained there for a solid 15 minutes. Five minutes before the final whistle went, the All Blues winger Falalauoula Amanoni snuck her way over the goal line and scored the winner for Berkeley. A failed conversion kept the game interesting for the final few minutes, but full time blew and Berkeley had done it, final score 26-24. 

It feels like the action has barely started in NorCal, as we still have five more matches on the schedule. Both Life West and the All Blues will host the Amazons this month, followed by Sacramento hosting Life West at the end of the month. Once we get through March, we might be able to handle another All Blues vs Life West slugfest, which is good because that’s scheduled for April 4th. Again – not sure about playoff structure here, but eventually winners will advance to the Pacific Super Regional in order to make their play for a shot at the National Championship. 

Two more weeks of SoCal Women’s D1 come and gone and it’s all been organized into a very neat structure. When we left off in January we had two undefeated sides and two sides without a win. There weren’t any crazy upsets, though a few scores were a bit more one-sided than anticipated. 

On February 14th, the San Diego Surfers (4-0) cemented their status as the team to beat when they handed Santa Monica (3-1) their first loss of the season. It was an impressive first half by San Diego, who scored 33 points in the first 25 minutes alone. Santa Monica then tightened up the defense and held off the scoring until halftime. A couple of second half tries pulled San Diego away, making the difference too much to chase for the Dolphins. Final score 52-28 to San Diego. Santa Monica did get a bonus point in the loss, which won’t really matter in the table, but is still a decent consolation prize. Both teams would go on to get another win last weekend against Belmont Shore (0-4) and Tempe (1-3). 

Tempe hosted Belmont back on the 14th as well, and both teams were gunning for their first win of the season. In a shock landslide, it wasn’t much of a battle. Tempe loaded 81 points on Belmont; a 13-try masterclass. It’s a confidence builder for Tempe, who deserved a win after their 26-24 loss to Santa Monica back in January, but a tough blow for Belmont who remains winless. Belmont’s best chance of making a move is on March 21st when they host Tempe. Yeah, the score of the last one wasn’t great, but an away match for Tempe might just weaken them enough for Belmont to get the upper hand. 

We’re not sure what playoffs look like in this competition, but with the Rocky Mountain moving over to the Northern Super Regional, there may be room for two SoCal teams in the Pacific Super Regional. Either way, semifinals might be a bit redundant for these teams; it’s clearly Santa Monica and Belmont on top. 

We have a couple of intra- and interdivisional matches this past month in Texas to recap. First up, Life U (4-0) added to their record without taking the pitch, thanks to a forfeit win over the Austin Valkyries (1-5). Life’s next match will be on March 7th; an anticipated rematch of the January 31st game against the sHARCs (4-1). Regardless of the outcome of that one, Life will advance to the Gulf Coast Super Regional match to take on the second seed out of Texas. 

The sHARCs had one win the past month, a strong 39-12 win over the Dallas Harlequins. Nadira Smith and Donneisha Smith both scored twice in the win while Alexandra Mostrom added the extras. Their next one will be when they head to Atlanta, taking on Life U. They’ll need to defeat either Life or the Quins on March 21st to secure their spot in the top two and head to the Gulf Coast.

The Dallas Harlequins (3-3) managed to pick up a spicy win over D2 Little Rock on February 7th. Dallas led at the half 12-5, but Little Rock scored twice out of the break to take the lead at minute 50. Alexis Jones pulled the score even with her try at 54 minutes for the Harlequins, and it stayed that way for another 15 minutes or so. The final 10 minutes saw two tries scored apiece for both teams, but it was the sharp boot of Samantha Garcia that made the difference. Alexis Jones finished off with a game-ending try to secure the win, 29-27 to the Harlequins. The Quins have one final match of the season, March 21st, when they host the sHARCs. If Dallas can win that one by a large enough margin AND prevent the sHARCs from getting a bonus point AND have Houston lose to Life U, they could still sneak into the top level playoffs. If not, they’ll still have one final match against the Austin Valkyries on April 11th at the Red River Championships.

The Austin Valkyries (1-5) picked up their first win of the season over the D2 sHARCs back on February 7th, final score 38-5. Five different players scored for the Valks, including two from flanker Macy Wagner. Caitlin Curley added four conversions for Austin, having not lost a beat from her time playing college rugby at North Carolina State University. The Valkyries only have one match left, March 21st when they host Life U. Regardless of the outcome of that one, the Valkyries will end their season on April 11th at the Red River Championships.