With last year’s champion Wayne State exiting stage left, the field in men’s Division III is wide open – especially for the teams in the Midwest Region who routinely ran into the Wildcats in the postseason.
The two teams best situated to take advantage of this opening out west are #5 Slippery Rock, the preseason favorites to win it all in 2025, and #4 Wisconsin Eau Claire, the 2025 7s National Champions who are looking to send their strong core of senior players off with back to back titles.
Everything was going smooth for Slippery Rock until a midseason slip up against conference foe Franciscan threatened to derail their postseason plans. But Kameron Kruze, Aidan O’Shea, Chase Nething and co. righted the ship with a 26-20 victory when the two teams met again in the ARU Championship, a victory that secured the number one seed and allowed them to avoid a play-in game. They’re now set to face off against another ARU team, Xavier, after the Musketeers upset the Northern Light conference champions, #13 St. Johns (MN), 29-12 in a play-in game last week. SRU shut Xavier out 33-0 in a conference playoff game earlier this month.
Wisconsin Eau-Claire, on the other hand, emerged from the regular season unscathed. The Blugolds rolled to a Great Midwest Conference Championship behind excellent play from dynamic duo Luke Pugh and Cal Schmitz throughout the season. Hooker Mitchell Schoen and flyhalf Lukas Wilson have also stood out for UWEC this season, as they eye a playoff rematch against Slippery Rock after losing a nailbiter 36-34 to the Rock in 2024.
They’ll have to overcome their first real test of the season in round one, however, as they come face-to-face with an incredibly talented Richmond side, who earned their Regionals spot by beating Loyola Maryland 49-19 last weekend. The Spiders have already proven themselves to be giant killers by taking down Duke University in the Southern Conference playoffs 26-19 when the Blue Devils were ranked #1 in the country. But the team was forced into a playoff after losing to VMI in the SoCon finals, showing that there are still some weak spots in the web.
Richmond’s entire front row consisting of Cash Lahive, Luke Frejimoni, and Elijah Reyes received plaudits after the victory over Duke because of the physicality they brought to the match, but it has been a team effort throughout the season. Haven Novack, Jack Verbaro, and Miles Pim have also made strong contributions to get the Spiders this far up the water spout. But they’ll all need to be at their best on Saturday lest the Blugolds wash them out.
Out West, the bracket features a rematch of an upset from last year’s Regional playoffs and a matchup between two conference champions, one of which is a storied program in its first year back after a long hiatus.
The rematch features the #2 team in the country, Cal Poly Humboldt, a perennial contender, and #15 Colorado School of Mines, who stunned the Lumberjacks last year in Oregon in the middle of a miracle run to the National playoffs. Mines must be feeling a bit of deja vu as the story for 2025 has played out almost exactly the same way as it did last year, with the Mules finishing second in the High Peaks conference, forcing them to win a play-in game against a conference champion from the South to punch their ticket to Regionals. Last year, it was SoCal’s Mira Costa who fell before the Orediggers’ mighty pick axe, while this year it was the Lonestar Conference Champion St. Edwards who lost 64-19. All-American Max Cisneros is in his senior season and playing well for Mines, who hope history will repeat itself and send them through to the Regional Final and beyond.
It’s a different Cal Poly Humboldt team that they’ll be facing, however, one with an impressive win over a DI-AA in San Jose State on its resume heading into the contest. All-American Logan Zampa leads the squad with his physicality in the front row, along with fellow prop Donovan Patterson. And though they are a young side, the Lumberjacks boast plenty of rugby experience, getting contributions from standout high school players Jonah Alexander Triantafyllou at flyhalf and Anthony Ricci from his center spot – both in their first year with Humboldt.
The other side of the bracket features #12 New Mexico Tech, who went undefeated in conference play to win the High Peaks Championship for the second year in a row, versus an unranked University of Montana team in its first year as a program under head coach Dave Kenkel. The Griz were unsure if they were going to be able to compete for a National Championship earlier this summer, but the squad that Kenkel put together looked so good in preseason play that they decided to give it a shot and ended up at the top of the Northwest Conference. Former Endicott standout Patrick Brennan was brought out West to lead Montana from the flyhalf spot and has done an outstanding job in doing so. Ishmael Bujosa-Perin has also played well for the Griz so far this year.
Another two incredibly competitive brackets have taken shape out East and down South, creating a veritable minefield of ranked and dangerous opponents waiting to topple anyone who dares lay claim to the DIII throne. In the South, the aforementioned #7 Franciscan Barons received their penance for losing their rematch against Slippery Rock in the form of a play-in game against #9 Susquehanna team that barely lost the MARC championship to #6 Catholic. Jason Reenock and Aaron Cavanaugh had stellar seasons for the River Hawks, but they didn’t have enough to overcome Franciscan, who passed their first test in their new reality by beating Susquehanna 24-19.
And the Barons’ reward for winning their play-in? A first-round matchup against the latest #1 ranked team in the country, the VMI Keydets. VMI very quietly went 9-0 in the regular season and then very loudly beat Richmond 65-12 to capture the top spot in the Southern Conference. But Franciscan has a history of taking down the top dogs, and will look to their stars in Sam King, Chris Ascough, Dom Grecol, and Paul Leerkes to help them do it again this weekend.
An epic 2024 Regional Finals rematch fills out the other half of the South bracket with Catholic taking on #11 Duke for the right to advance to this year’s final. Last year, the Blue Devils edged the Cardinals 51-45 in a day-two slugfest before losing to Holy Cross in the first round of the National playoffs a month later. This year, Duke seemed to be on the fast-track back to Houston behind potential player-of-the-year candidate River Hanson, until they fell to Richmond. Ed Dixon helped his side rebound quickly, however, as they defeated The Citadel 45-19 the following week to keep their playoff hopes alive. Gabe Downes, Zach Wickens, J Stokes, and Brock Doherty were the standouts in that match for the Blue Devils, who are capable of scoring 100+ if the conditions are right. Catholic will look to their stars in late-game hero Luke Skelton, whose leg veins are full of ice, and scrumhalf Ethan Miller to lead them past the Devils in round one.
Up North, the number one contender in the region is #3 Nichols, who took the NERFU Conference by storm in the wake of Babson’s departure for DI-AA after leapfrogging both Providence and Holy Cross. Joey Yearsley, Blake Moore, and Toby Ludewig have been the standout players for the Bison so far this season and will lead the charge in their opening round matchup against #17 Endicott. The Gulls finished second in the North Atlantic Conference, but earned their way back into the Regional playoffs with a convincing 65-12 win over Tri-state Conference champs USMMA. Chris Freeman had four tries in that game and has played well for Endicott all year, as have Jack Lewis and Will Savage.
The other side of that bracket features an inverse of this matchup, with NACR champions, #14 Springfield, taking on NERFU runners-up, and 2024 National DIII runners-up, Holy Cross. Springfield triumphed over Endicott 24-21 in the conference final after losing to them 34-19 only a week before. Jordan Hanechak is a smooth operator in the ten shirt for Springfield and Kyle McLoughlin is a beast at outside center. McLoughlin’s battle with his opposite number for Holy Cross, John Cox, will certainly be one to watch as Cox is an incredibly versatile athlete and the linchpin for coach Brendan Wimberly’s Crusaders.
Holy Cross lost a lot of talent after their 2024 National Championship game against Wayne State with the departures of Jackson Evarts and Matt Schwab, But the team has rallied around new stars like Cox and Liam Travis on their way to another successful season. Though they fell to Nichols in the conference final, the 33-26 scoreline was much closer than their early-season defeat at the hands of the Bison. The Crusaders seem to be peaking at the right time with two wins over Providence College and a convincing 43-7 win over #16 SUNY – Brockport in the play-in last weekend bookending their close loss to Nichols in the final.
All matches will be streamed live on the NCR YouTube Channel. More rugby news at TheCollegeRugbyShow.com.
