Women’s Division 1 – September 2026 Recap

Days grow shorter, temperatures and leaves start dropping, kids head back to school, and all around the country rugby players gather at their local clubs to start laying the groundwork for another USA Club Rugby XV season. Unlike the 7s season that’s short, sharp, and played around the country at the same time; the XV season is a different beast. Different regions of the country play their regular season (and sometimes their playoffs!) at different times, usually weather-dependent. They also often don’t play across Geographic Unions, and if they do, it’s typically not when both teams are at their peak. So what does this mean? It means that one – it’s hard to compare teams across regions, and two – these monthly recap articles tend to be very heavily focused on certain regions depending on what time of year it is. Everyone eventually gets their moment in the spotlight, so if it’s not now, it’ll be later, just hang tight. 

If you’re new here – welcome to the monthly USA Club Rugby Recaps! How this works is simple. Every month I will cover what happened in the active GU’s and competitive regions, broken down by division. We have five divisions vying for USA National Championships – Women’s 1+2, and Men’s 1+2+3. There are Women’s Division 3 and Men’s Division 4 in some regions in the country. Depending on the density of these teams, they might play for a regional championship, or play in a hybrid league with some of the NCS-seeking teams. For now, hybrid leagues are the only time we’ll cover them, but there’s always room for growth in the future. 

So – where do I get my information? Ah, I’m so glad you asked. I get my schedules and league formats from union-entered data on Rugby Xplorer. So if there’s no schedule uploaded, I have to guess. I get my scores and stats from team-entered data on Rugby Xplorer. This means the more detailed your team is at entering match data (rosters, scoring, subs, cards), the more detailed I can be in my recaps. If you don’t upload the info – I’ve got to adlib, and no one wants that. That being said, if you do see a mistake feel free to reach out via email – I’m always going to try to get the most accurate information out there.

Whew, now that we covered all that (and for you regular readers out there) it’s time to get into it. Check out below to see what happened in September (and the end of August!) in the Women’s Division 1 Competition.

Starting off with the action-packed Midwest. You can expect this to be the bulk of the information coming out of these recap articles for the next few months. One – it’s one of the few leagues with regular season games; and two – it houses the most D1 Women’s teams across the country. That’s right, eight teams might not seem like much, but compared to the rest of the country, that’s a lot of elite women’s rugby. We’ve got two geographic subdivisions to cover with four teams each, so let’s dive in. 

Over in the Eastern conference, five teams from last year have dropped to four with the loss of the Cincinnati Kelts to D2. Outside of that, the standings look identical to how they finished off last year. The Pittsburgh Forge (3-0) have started out perfect, racking up a total PD of +92 over three matches. Their first match of the year was their closest, defeating the Columbus Squirrels (2-1) 39-19 on the road in Ohio. Perhaps one of the most impressive things about the Forge is their depth across the park. In three matches, 14 different players have scored tries for Pittsburgh and three have kicked conversions. Clara Pettinos and Lexi Hulick have shared the majority of the kicking duties, each with four conversions apiece in their last match.

The Squirrels are currently second in the East, notching wins over the Grand Rapids Growlers (1-2) and Detroit (0-3), putting them on a two-match win streak. Despite being below Pittsburgh in the standings, Columbus actually have a larger overall PD (+99), mostly thanks to their 81-10 win over Detroit back on September 12th. Kaeli Evins scored an astonishing five tries in that one, with fellow winger Kayla Sikaly scoring three. Next weekend the Forge host the Squirrels in a hotly-anticipated rematch for the top of the table. If Columbus can win by a larger differential than Forge beat them by AND prevent Pittsburgh from getting a losing bonus point, they will take over first place. However, anything else – including a Forge win, Forge getting a losing bonus point, or a draw – and the top of the table will stay with Pittsburgh.

Duking it out on the bottom of the table (for now) are the Grand Rapids Growlers and Detroit. The Growlers took down Detroit 38-12 when they played back on September 5th, but both had similar scorelines when they played Pittsburgh. Currently Grand Rapids has a much more favorable PD (-53 to -138), but as we mentioned before, that 81-10 loss Detroit had to Columbus really skewed the numbers. The two will play again this weekend, this time in Grand Rapids, and unless Detroit has a secret weapon up their sleeve, the Growlers will certainly feed off that home crowd to try to power themselves to a victory. 

Heading over to check in on the Western conference, we’ve got a bit of a shakeup in the standings already. The Chicago Lions (3-0), who finished 0-6 last year, are currently undefeated and on top of the table thanks to a nail-bitingly narrow win over Chicago North Shore (2-1) back on September 5th. Cienna Jordan scored first for the Lions in the 11th minute, but failed to convert, giving North Shore a gap to exploit. They did so a few minutes later, with Colleen Murphy diving over for a try of their own, converted by Barbara Ribeiro, to take the lead 7-5. That’s where the scoring stopped and the defensive battle began. Both teams would have chances, but the score was locked at 7-5 until the final ten minutes of the match. At 73 minutes, Jayla Twitty added the second for the Lions, taking back the narrow lead by a score of 10-7. Any score by North Shore would have tied or taken the game, but the Lions held them off. At the final whistle, it was the Lions who took the first win of the season, starting off far better than they had last year. North Shore did manage to take their own wins from that loss; they prevented the Lions from getting a winning bonus point AND managed to secure a losing bonus of their own. This means that the Lions and North Shore are still incredibly close in the standings, and it’s likely going to come down to the result this weekend to see who finishes on top of the table. 

The Metropolis Valkyries (1-2) got their lone win of the season back on opening weekend when they traveled to the Twin Cities Amazons (0-3). It was a barn burner of a game, with Metropolis scoring almost all of their 41 points in the first half; but the Zons made a late push, bringing the score within 10 points with 15 minutes to go. The Valkyries held on, but the Zons got a losing bonus point in the battle for scoring over four tries, their first of the season. The Amazons also got a losing bonus in their loss to the Chicago Lions just last weekend, putting them at two BPs to Metropolis’ one. The win keeps the Valkyries on top for now, but the two will face off again on October 10th, and it’s sure to be a good one. 

It looks like we’ll have the same three teams in the Rocky Mountain Women’s D1 again this year: the Utah Vipers, the Colorado Gray Wolves, and Denver Black Ice. We don’t yet have a schedule posted, but it looks like teams are gearing up for an active fall season, so we hope to see something soon. 

According to The Rugby Breakdown, it looks like the Gray Wolves (1-0) smashed Black Ice (0-1) last weekend by a score of 50-5. A great start for the Wolves, who finished 0-4 last year, forfeiting their last match of the season to the Utah Vipers, who placed second at the USAR Club National Championship. As soon as a formal schedule is posted via RX, we’ll know more.

The Atlantic Women’s D1 competition looks unchanged from last year, with the same seven teams spanning the East Coast all the way from Boston down to Atlanta. We’re only one week into the action, with six of seven teams having taken the pitch, and it’s already exciting. 

Starting off with a win are last year’s regular season undefeated side, Philadelphia (1-0), along with the DC Furies (1-0) and Boston (1-0). Boston might have already cleaned up the award for upset of the year when they took down NOVA (0-1) on September 19th. Two second half tries by Emma Santosuosso sealed the deal for Boston, who hung on for a narrow 29-26 win, toppling last year’s National semifinalists. Quite an upset to start off the season for Boston, who finished in sixth last year, missing out on the playoffs. 

Philadelphia started just where they left off with a 39-12 defeat of the Raleigh Venom (0-1). It was still a marked improvement for Raleigh, whose last match last year was a 94-3 defeat to the same team. Katie Cardone scored a hat-trick for Philly in the game, including two tries back to back in the second half. 

The DC Furies were the final team to kick off with a win when they toppled the Atlanta Harlequins (0-1) 49-17 down in Georgia on September 19th. DC just made it into the playoffs last year, finishing their season with a 22-19 win over Boston to clinch the final berth. This year, DC aren’t looking to leave things to the last minute. There’s only four playoff spots up for grabs, and the Furies want one. 

New York was supposed to kick off their season last weekend, but the match against NOVA was postponed to a later date. Their first game will now be this weekend when they host DC at home. Other matches to look forward to this month include Philly and Boston going head to head on Halloween, Atlanta hosting Boston on the 3rd, and DC and Raleigh battling it out at the end of the month.

Over in the Pacific Northwest, not much has changed as far as the competition is concerned. Both Seattle and the Portland Pigs have indicated their intent to participate in the D1 postseason pathway, and will play a hybrid D1/D2 season with the Emerald City Mudhens, the Bend Lady Roughriders, the ORSU Jesters, and the Eugene Reign. Games got started earlier this month, so we already have a few results to cover!

The Seattle Orcas (2-0) kicked off their season with a 39-24 win over the D2 Emerald City Mudhens (0-2) on September 12th; Sydney Colbern scoring twice for the Orcas in that one. The first D1 clash of the year took place on September 19th, with the Orcas hosting the Portland Pigs (1-1). Seattle scored two first half tries, but Portland evened the score at 10-10 as both teams headed towards the end of the match. It looked like it was going to finish as a stalemate when Laura Kujawski broke through for Seattle and scored at the death. Final score 15-10 to Seattle, but a thrilling promise of an exciting season to come. 

The Portland Pigs followed up this loss with a resounding win over the Emerald City Mudhens last weekend, 43-7. As their match against Seattle was their first of the season, perhaps they were just warming up for the long game. Portland hosts back to back matches at the start of October, taking on the Reign on the 3rd and the Jesters on the 10th. Seattle travels to the Reign on the 10th, and then is off until November. There’s still a lot of season left to play for these two teams, and it’ll keep going through the new year. 

Up in Northern California, the D1/D2 hybrid league has added San Jose as a D2 side. They will join the Sacramento Amazons, who have confirmed their interest into the D2 pathway, as well as last year’s D2 National Champions, Life West (who have moved back to D1), and the D1 Berkeley All Blues. In short, not a ton of restructuring, but a lot of clarification, at least for me. The two D2 and two D1 sides will play a full home/away season against each other starting in February, but come April it will be between Berkeley and Life West for the D1 postseason slot, and between Sacramento and San Jose for the D2 postseason spot. Lots of time before this one kicks off!

Another competition that likely won’t start until the new year is Southern California. SoCal Women’s D1 includes teams out of the Southwest, like Tempe, alongside the San Diego Surfers, Santa Monica, and Belmont Shore. Los Angeles could possibly join the D1 competition this year after finishing 8-0 in the D2 last year; or maybe Las Vegas women out of Nevada. I could see Belmont Shore dropping down to D2 for a year, they had a tough go of it last year, finishing winless with an average PD against them of almost 60 points per match. There’s no schedule posted, so this is all guesswork right now, once the final schedule goes up, we will know who we are working with. 

Perhaps the biggest news out of the Gulf Coast is that the Red River Conference has restructured and there will not be a Women’s D1 competition this year. This doesn’t entirely come as a surprise; the TRU is geographically isolated and the same three teams have been playing one another over and over again for the last few years. Last year Life University entered the picture and razed Texas on the way to winning a D1 National Championship (which they did by a differential of 57 points). This year the Austin Valkyries, Dallas Harlequins, and Houston sHARCs will formally enter as D2 teams, playing regular season matches against the Dallas RFC, the San Antonio Riveters, and Little Rock, eligible to pursue a D2 National Championship pathway. So, we won’t be covering the TRU in this article moving forward – but this does bring up some questions about what the qualification pathway for the Women’s D1 National Championship will look like. Plenty of time to figure that out, it’s only September after all.