Women’s Division 2 – 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 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 getting closer to resuming the Capital Women’s D2 competition, with the first game of the spring season kicking off on March 14th. Although technically all teams still have a chance to finish top of the table, it looks like it’s going to come down to James River (3-1) and Severn River (3-0). James River has the lead on the table right now, as they’ve played one more match, but Severn is the last undefeated team left in the conference. Both Norfolk Storm (1-3) and NOVA (0-3) would have to win the rest of their matches and have Severn River lose to James River on March 28th to fight for their spot on the top, a tall order.

NOVA will travel to Severn River on that opening weekend, followed by an immediate trip to James River on the 21st. Norfolk Storm will open their spring season the same day when they host Severn River.

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). Even if they lose their two spring matches against Harrisburg (2-3) and Monmouth (4-1), they’d still make it in as the second-seed (if Monmouth gets all possible bonus points and White Horse gets no losing bonus points). Monmouth and Harrisburg both only have five matches played, which puts them both in the best position to make it to that final match against Phoenixville. However, they both still have to play Phoenixville and each other in the spring, which makes it hard to guess who will advance. Monmouth obviously has the leg up, having defeated Harrisburg 26-22 back in October. But, by the time they face off again, five months will have passed, and anything can happen in that time. 

Northeast Philadelphia (2-4) has a chance of making it to the postseason, but they have to win their last two games and have Harrisburg beat Monmouth but lose their other two matches. As Harrisburg still has one match left against Doylestown (0-6), that’s a risky bet. 

Doylestown are mathematically out of playoffs, but still have the opportunity to finish their season with a win. They will face Harrisburg and Northeast Philadelphia in the spring; their last match against Northeast Philly was only a 10-point loss, and they haven’t played Harrisburg since the fall season opener. So both are definitely realistic wins for the Dragons. 

The action all gets started on March 14th with Northeast Philadelphia and Harrisburg hosting.

There were two matches in February for our Women’s D2 teams in the Pacific Northwest. The Bend Lady Roughriders (2-1) took on the D1 Seattle Orcas last weekend. That one was a 46-10 win to the Orcas, who will advance to the D1 postseason pathway. Bend are still at third in the overall ranking, closing in on the Portland Pigs (3-0) at the top. The Emerald City Mudhens (2-2) are also jockeying for that top spot; they played the Stellar Sea Lions (1-2) this past weekend. It looks like it was a win for the Mudhens, but no formal results are in. There’s no matches listed for March, but it might just be a delay in RX. Based on the current standings, it’s pretty clear that last year’s champions, the Portland Pigs, are again the team to beat. 

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. 

There’s plenty of action to catch up from Southern California, who are deep in the midst of their season. 

It’s close at the top of the table between the Pasadena Royals (5-1) and Los Angeles RC (5-0). Los Angeles defeated Ventura County (1-4) 51-7 before blanking the WC Marines (4-1) 34-0. The Pasadena Royals added to their record with a 27-10 defeat of San Fernando (3-2) and a 73-14 defeat of the Fullerton Wolfpack (2-4). There’s also been a number of forfeits in this league, and a few of them have added to the records. Despite the Royals having one more table point than Los Angeles, LARC won the head to head back in January, 26-22, so if it comes back down to those two, LA just has to repeat what they’ve already done once. 

The West Coast Marines are currently in third on the table, thanks to that loss to LA two weeks ago. They’ve been lethal up to that point, still with a PD of +213, the biggest in the league despite one less match played. They’ll take on the Pasadena Royals next weekend, a good chance to jump back up in the standings and make sure everyone knows they’re not to be counted out.

San Fernando are fourth overall, even though they also lost their last match against the Fullerton Wolfpack last weekend. They had a forfeit win from SLO (1-5) in the middle of the month, which helped them on the table, but they’re on a two-match loss streak thanks to their game against Pasadena back on the 7th. Their next chance to bolster their standings will be on March 7th when they host the Santa Barbara Mermaids (1-4). 

The Empire Monarchs (2-3) and the Mermaids are neck and neck in the middle of the pack. Empire got a massive win on the 21st over SLO, final score 68-5. This was the Monarchs first played match since January 17th; they forfeited on the 14th to the Mermaids. The Mermaids only played once in February, a 52-19 loss to the Fullerton Wolfpack. Beyond that, Ventura County forfeited their last match and SLO have had a number of forfeits on the board. It’s not great, especially since there’s a significant part of the season left.

Coming up in March, the race at the top of the table heats up with Pasadena hosting the WC Marines and Los Angeles hosting San Fernando. The last weekend of regular season play will be on March 21st before teams head into the playoffs. Only one will advance to the Pacific Super Regional at the end of April. 

We only have about five or so games to cover out of the Southwest region, but we do have updated standings tables that give us some additional insight into how the competition is going this year.

The first point of note is that Las Vegas (3-1) are back on the scene. Now the Irish did technically have games scheduled in December and January, but they forfeited the one in December due to lack of numbers, then had the January match forfeited on them due to injury. So entering February they were 1-1 with zero games actually played. This month they were finally able to take the pitch and came away with two wins; 41-5 over the Albuquerque Atomic Sisters (0-3) and 39-11 over Old Pueblo Lightning (2-4). They do still have three matches left this season, so they should be good to qualify for playoffs despite the forfeit, but they probably won’t make it past Phoenix to nab the top spot. 

Phoenix (6-0) have been having a stellar season, and added two more wins to their undefeated record this past month. On the 7th they defeated the Atomic Sisters 56-5, and just last weekend they took down the Lady Landsharks (1-4) 46-17. Their earlier season win over the Las Vegas Irish was that forfeit from back in December, so their biggest test is still on the horizon. On March 21st we’ll see who the big dog in the Southwest is, when Phoenix travels to Vegas to defend their spot on top of the table. 

Old Pueblo Lightning and the Lady Landsharks are duking it out at third and fourth on the table. They faced off against each other on the 14th, with the spoils going to the Lightning. It was a high-scoring match, with Old Pueblo only scoring two more tries than the Landsharks. The difference in the scoring was the kicking ability of Old Pueblo’s Mary Monnard, who slotted seven for seven, perfect on the day. Both teams have a few more matches to play, including a number against the Albuquerque Atomic Sisters, who are still looking for their first win of the season. The Atomic Sisters scored big when they last played the Landsharks, final score 52-39, but it wasn’t enough to get the victory. With four matches left to play, the Atomic Sisters are certainly going to be busy in March.

Mathematically everyone might still have a chance at playoff contention, but it definitely involves some creative and surprising wins/losses across the board. The most likely chance is that Phoenix and Las Vegas will be the final two we see in the playoffs. We’ll find out more as the month goes on!

We have one match that took place on Valentine’s Day weekend to recap. This was the highly anticipated game between the Birmingham Steel (3-0) and the Knoxville Minx (1-1). The Minx have long been the powerhouses of the True South division, making National Championship appearances in 2022 and 2023, winning the title in 2023. The Steel started off their season well, clinching wins over the Chattanooga Queens (0-1) and the Nashville Stone Lions (0-2) in October, but without a match against the Minx, we didn’t know how they’d stack up. Now we can wonder no longer, as Birmingham certainly made a statement with a 32-12 bonus point win over the Minx. Six different players scored for the Steel, including Libby Groark who has been taking the majority of the kicking duty. 

Coming up in March, the Queens and the Stone Lions will battle it out for their first win of the season. After that, the Queens will travel to Knoxville for their final regular season game. No word about the playoff structure for this league. With only four teams, it’s realistic that all four would advance to semifinals, but we’ll let you know when we know. There’s plenty of time before the winner is due at the Gulf Coast Super Regional, being held in Austin, TX at the end of April. 

Down in Texas we only had three D2 on D2 games and two hybrid conference matches this past month. 

Little Rock (4-1) continues to dominate in D2 and give the D1 teams a run for their money. They racked up two big wins over San Antonio (1-3) this past month, a combined 70-7. They also came deadly close to beating the D1 Dallas Harlequins on February 7th, losing on a game-ending try; the final score of that one was 29-27. Little Rock is done for the time being, with no more matches on the schedule. As the top two teams will advance to the Red River Championships on April 11th, Little Rock has secured their spot and will take on either San Antonio or the sHARCs D2 (0-4) for the spot at the Gulf Coast. 

San Antonio got their first win of the season this past month when they defeated the sHARCs 62-5 on February 21st. It was a 10-try performance, with an astonishing seven of the ten coming from inside center Toni Armstrong. They’ve got one final match to play on March 14th when they travel to the sHARCs once more. If they win that, they will advance to the April 11th Red River Championships. If they lose, as long as they keep the difference under 57 points, they’ll still advance. 

The sHARCs are still hunting for that elusive win, and they’ve only got one chance left. However, unlike the D1 teams in this hybrid conference, if they lose their final game (or win by less than 57), their season will end there. It’s all riding on March 14th for both Houston and San Antonio. Little Rock will just sit and wait. 

The Carolinas Women’s D2 competition kicked back off in February, and we’ve got some massive scores coming in from the East Coast. 

In the West, the Atlanta 2.0 Selects (6-1) are still top of the table despite a 26-19 loss against the Eastern leaders Charlotte (7-0) on February 14th. Atlanta recorded a 94-0 win over Fear the Maniacs (3-3) the weekend before and a 60-10 win over the Fayetteville Valkyries (4-3) the weekend after, so Charlotte must not have rattled them too badly. With only one match left to play against Eno River (4-3), Atlanta have locked down the top seed out of the Western conference heading into the postseason. 

The Augusta Furies (3-3) and the Savannah Shamrocks (2-4) are fighting for the second spot in the West; Augusta lost on the 21st to a climbing Eno River side, and Savannah played this past weekend, but no scores are yet reported. Both teams have two matches left to play in March, so it could come down to the wire.

Over in the East, Charlotte remains undefeated after taking down the Atlanta 2.0 Selects on the 14th. This was by far their biggest test of the season, as they’ve racked up a total PD of +394, including a 101-12 win over the Savannah Shamrocks just this past month. It was a close game, only one converted try made the difference between the two sides, so Charlotte can’t be too comfortable. Chances are that Charlotte and Atlanta will face each other once more when playoffs come around. 

The Fayetteville Valkyries and Eno River are both gunning for second place with 4-3 records. We are still waiting on one score from February 28th between Fayetteville and Savannah, so if that was a win for the Valkyries, they’ve already moved into second overall. Eno River has been on the upswing this past month, getting a 62-5 win over Savannah on the 7th and a 43-0 blanking of the Augusta Furies on the 21st. They have one match left hosting the Atlanta 2.0 Selects on the 14th; if they pull off an upset in that one, it would certainly make a statement heading into the playoffs. 

Fear the Maniacs are on the bottom of the Eastern table, but still at a surprising 3-3 record. This just goes to show how close the competition is in the Carolinas. Fear dropped a big one to Atlanta back at the start of the month, but they have a chance to get back to their winning ways on March 14th when they host the Savannah Shamrocks on the 14th. 

All in all, most teams still have a chance of making the playoffs if the top two from each division go. Either way, this competition has been one of the most competitive across the country, with all teams recording at least two wins so far.

We’re past the midway point for the five Women’s D2 teams down in Florida, and we’ve got one clear leader and a number of contenders for the top two spots.

The Tampa Krewe (5-0) added another two wins and a forfeit this past month to keep them undefeated and on top of the table. The big surprise was the forfeit from Jacksonville (2-4), who shocked us last month with their defeat of Fort Miami (2-3) on opening weekend. The Krewe have stacked up a total PD of +267 and even more impressive, have only allowed 29 points to be scored against them all season. It appears that the 2024 National Champions are back and gunning for a ticket to that National Championship tournament once more. 

The next three teams on the table are all tied with four total points, though Orlando (2-2) has one less match played overall. Fort Miami defeated Orlando back on February 14th in order to claim second place in the standings. Sofia Fernandez and Essence Bell both scored twice for Fort Miami in that one, while Vanessa Surridge was perfect off the tee for Orlando. Jacksonville are in fourth overall, but are the only of those three teams to have a positive point differential. That’s where the forfeit comes back to bite them. Orlando also defeated Jacksonville this past weekend, 36-12, giving them an extra boost. 

The Hammerheads (0-3) are still looking for their first win of the season, they clocked a couple of big losses this past month. They only have one match left to play, and that’s when they host Orlando on the 14th.

Orlando and Fort Miami go head to head next weekend, if Orlando can get the win – they’ll move up into second. If Fort Miami takes it – they’ll be more secure in their position. Fort Miami also takes on Jacksonville the following weekend, they’ll be desperate to avoid a repeat of that 26-24 loss back from the start of the season.