Women’s Division 1 – March 2026 Recap

This isn’t basketball, but it sure seems like March Madness out there. With the return of spring and the rising temperatures, we welcome back the return of club rugby to many regions across the country. Not only have the teams started playing again, but we have landed smack dab in the middle of playoff season, and it’s spicy.

If you’re new here – all of the information for this article comes from team-entered data on Rugby Xplorer. You know the rules – the more accurate your team admin is about entering data, the more accurate I can be in these articles. Any other commentary is added for fun from someone who has zero stake in the outcome of these games. 

Also worth a note – with Super Regionals at the end of April/start of May, this is our last “monthly” recap for the 2025-26 XV season. We’ll preview all four Super Regionals as well as the National Championship tournament, and in there we will cover the last bits of how local competitions wrapped up. But don’t worry about that just yet, we’ve got all of March to cover! Let’s dive in and see how the Women’s D1 Competition fared this past month.

Chicago North Shore defeated the Pittsburgh Forge back in November to clinch the Midwest championship and the berth in the Northern Super Regional in May, but now there’s more work to be done to prep for the battle against Utah. North Shore’s first hit out of the season was over the 21st and 22nd of March in Nashville at the annual Nash Bash Tournament. They went undefeated in three matches over the two days, defeating the Circle City Tempest for the championship trophy. Chicago will take on the rest of the Midwest D1 in four back to back (to back to back) weekends before Super Regionals in their own backyard. The Midwest final rematch will be April 18th in Pittsburgh, you don’t want to miss that one. 

The Utah Vipers (4-0) finally closed out their season with one last win over the Colorado Gray Wolves (0-4) on March 21st. Although the defending D1 National Champions had it in the bag last fall, this was a good test to make sure they were hitting the ground running in the spring. The Vipers racked up 86 points to Colorado’s 14, bringing their total season differential to +247. This year Utah will travel to Illinois to take on Chicago North Shore in order to qualify for the National Final Four, instead of battling it out in the Pacific Super Region. This will hopefully provide a bit more competition for the Women’s D1 Clubs, ensuring no region gets an automatic bid to Nationals. 

The Atlantic Women’s D1 competition also opened back up this month with two matches. 

First up, Raleigh Venom (1-3) got their first win of the season over the Atlanta Harlequins (0-4) on March 21st. Shaylin Laure scored the first two tries for the Venom before taking the lead into the half, 19-0. Laure added another along with three other teammates in the second half, final score 43-0 over the Quins. It has been a tough season for Atlanta, who have one match left to play on April 11th, hosting New York Rugby Club (3-2). Raleigh will host Boston (0-3) on April 4th and Philadelphia (5-0) on April 11th before the end of the regular season; win those two and Raleigh could be making the trip to the Atlantic Super Regionals. 

The second game that took place in March was perhaps the biggest game of the regular season; undefeated Philadelphia and NOVA (4-1) going head to head. The records this year for both teams were nearly identical. However, when you look at the record over the last couple of years, it’s all NOVA (I mean, three titles in five years come on). So if you thought NOVA were going to pull this out, you weren’t the only one. But you’d be wrong. Philadelphia absolutely dominated the contest, putting their foot down and letting everyone know who the best team in the Atlantic is. Nicole Snyder scored twice for Philly, while Emma Ward added three conversions and one penalty goal. This, plus a try from captain Katie Cordone, added up to 24 to NOVA’s 10; Philadelphia on top. An incredible win for Philly, who have guaranteed their spot at the Atlantic Super Regional. It’s probably too soon to start requisitioning the trophy cabinet now, NOVA also booked their ticket to the Super Regional back in the fall. Will we see these two square off again? More than likely. Philadelphia still has to travel to Raleigh for their final match of the season; if they win that, they are guaranteed the top seed. NOVA will host the DC Furies (2-2) for their final match of the season. If they can win with a bonus point and have Philadelphia lose without getting a bonus point, they will snag the top spot. 

New York and DC are still in the best position to advance to Super Regionals, but it’s not too late for Raleigh to mess things up. Boston isn’t yet out either, but they’ve definitely got to win their next two with bonus points and hope the Furies don’t pick up any losing bonus points. The biggest game for both of those teams will be April 11th when they go head to head. 

Still some things to play for before we confirm who is heading to the Super Regionals where we get to see the best go at it again before one makes the trip to Nationals.

The Seattle Orcas (6-0) have clinched their spot in the Pacific Super Regional due to being the only Women’s D1 team in the Pacific Northwest. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t worked for it! The Orcas played three cross-conference matches in March after wrapping up their BC Premiership season. The first was the closest, against D2 powerhouse, the Portland Pigs. Portland have only lost to Seattle this season, and defeated them last year in league play. This game was thrilling, with both teams playing back and forth, adding points to their totals. In the end Seattle took the win 39-24, thanks to a pair of tries from Sydnee Kimber and a score at the death from Danielle Fogg. The Orcas closed out their season with two more wins, 39-0 over the Steller Sea Lions and 108-5 over the Emerald City Mudhens. Next stop for the Orcas – Super Regionals.

Only three matches to cover from Northern California, which makes sense since there are only really three teams in this D1/D2 bracket. Unfortunately, the Sacramento Amazons (0-4) continue to be thrown around by the Berkeley All Blues (4-0) and Life West (2-2), with two more massive scorelines coming from the matches on the 7th and the 14th. I think (hope) that Sacramento will be pursuing the D2 postseason pathway while the better of the All Blues versus Life West takes the bid for the D1. 

Speaking of the All Blues against Life West, let’s dive into the recap of that epic battle. The first time the two played this season was back in February; ending as a two-point win to Berkeley. This time Life West played host, and it was just as exciting. Life West took an early lead just minutes in through Laura Bocek, but Laura Thacker evened it up for the All Blues ten minutes later. (Battle of the Lauras, amiright?) Alia Simmonds took the lead back for Life West with Bocek converting, but only for a few minutes when Lisa Kelly added her own for Berkeley. Tapaita Satini scored the final try of the half for Life West, taking the lead into the sheds 17-12. Berkeley scored first in the second half to tie it again, but Life West took the lead back moments later. A try from Hope Cooper tied it up again at minute 60, then finally Berkeley took their first lead of the match in the 70th minute through Emma Hovanec. Cristina Bravo added another for the All Blues to extend the lead fortunately, as Life West had one final try to score before full time. Final score 34-29 in favor of the guests, the Berkeley All Blues. This brings Berkeley’s record to 2-0 over Life West this season, but I don’t know if that confirms them in the Super Regional or not. The two are slated to play again this weekend, if you think your heart can handle it. 

Southern California finished their regular season this past weekend with a neat and organized standings table. 

On March 21st, the San Diego Surfers (6-0) confirmed their spot in the playoffs with a 47-10 defeat of the Santa Monica Dolphins (4-2). It was a solid performance for the Surfers over the second-place seed, leading at the half 35-5 before guaranteeing another trip to the Super Regionals at full-time. The same day, Tempe (2-4) were keeping their playoff hopes alive with a 27-0 defeat of Belmont Shore (0-6) on the road. 

The final weekend of play had San Diego hosting Belmont, the outcome of which didn’t matter as San Diego had locked up the top seed. The Surfers won anyway, no surprise, scoring 73 points to Belmont’s zero. Finally Santa Monica hosted Tempe in a final battle for playoff qualification. The last time the two met, the Dolphins narrowly edged Tempe 26-24 in Arizona. This time, all Santa Monica had to do was win or tie to guarantee a top two finish. If Tempe won, they had to do it by over two points to beat the head to head comparison. What could have been a nailbiter turned into a masterclass from Santa Monica, who proved they were willing to put it all on the line for that qualification spot. The Dolphins scored nine tries, including an incredible SEVEN from Nia Toliver, the woman who cannot be stopped. 

I’m not sure if San Diego and Santa Monica will play once more to determine seeding for the Super Regionals (and to be honest not sure if it’s confirmed that SoCal gets two seeds – NorCal also has two strong teams). Either way, we will likely see these two face off again for the SoCal title before the playoff run begins in full. 

The Red River had two matches left to play in March, but the final two were already confirmed last month. Life University (6-0) closed out their first regular season in Women’s D1 with a perfect record and an overall PD of +346 (about 58 points per match). More impressively, Life have only had 12 points scored against them all season. Their total domination was confirmed when they defeated the second-place sHARCs (4-3) 116-0 on March 7th. The Texas final will be a rematch between these two sides, taking place at the Gulf Coast Super Regionals at the end of April. 

The sHARCs actually suffered two losses in March; they dropped that first one to Life but then ended their regular season with a 48-22 loss to the Dallas Harlequins (4-3) on March 21st. Houston held the lead in that match for only a minute, after Becky Brown Davidson’s early try; but the Quins scored their own through Kaylee Goodwin a second later and never relinquished control after that. The Quins finished with the same record as Houston, but one less bonus point AND a forfeit earlier in the season relegated them down to the conference final instead of on the National Championship pathway.

Coming up in April, Life will host the sHARCs at the Gulf Coast Super Regional while the Quins and the Austin Valkyries (1-6) play one final match at the Red River Conference finals on April 11th.