National Collegiate Rugby (NCR) has officially released the brackets for the 2025 Collegiate Rugby Championship, which for the women occurs Saturday-Sunday, April 26-27 at the Maryland SoccerPlex in Boyds, Md. Four champions will be named among the 64 women’s teams in attendance. Be sure to download the NCR app, as it carries live and valuable information on the day’s games, results and more.
The Women’s Premier Cup features 16 teams that all have some form of athletics department support that ranges from NCAA varsity to elevated club status. From the NCAA varsity ranks are five Division I programs, chief among them the two-time defending champion Brown (R.I.) and runner-up Army (N.Y.). They’re joined by Mount St. Mary’s (Md.), Navy (Md.) and Queens University of Charlotte (N.C.).
NCAA Division II has four representatives, including East bracket-topper American International College (Mass.), West Chester (Pa.), New Haven (Conn.) and Frostburg (Md.). And DIII has the high-performing Bowdoin College (Maine). The aforementioned all compete in NIRA during the 15s regular season.
Wheeling (W.V.), Southern Nazarene (Okla.), St. Bonaventure (N.Y.) and Adrian (Mich.) represent NCR Division I, and Norwich University (Vt.) is NCR DII. Penn State is a long-time CRC competitor that plays 15s in CRAA, but with an at-large-type status.
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Women’s Division I Club is a fun space, as the 16 teams hail from Arizona, California, Colorado, D.C., Florida (2), Idaho, Indiana (2), Iowa (2), Massachusetts (3), Oregon and Texas. Pretty good coverage of the country.
In the West half of the bracket, Northeastern takes the top seed, while 2024 champ Claremont Colleges out of Southern California comes in second. Oregon is back and injected some Pacific Northwest flair into the tournament last year. And watch for debutants Central Florida and Howard to mix things up. In the East, Big 10 champ Purdue headlines, and first-timer Florida State is No. 2. The Seminoles sent a good chunk of players to the NCR All-Star 7s in January, and they can play. Arizona State is also new CRCs and they carry a Pacific Desert conference championship with them to the East Coast.
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Women’s Division II is also very diverse, pulling 16 teams from 14 states: Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York (2), Ohio, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin (2). The U.S. Coast Guard Academy and 2024 champ Univ. Wisconsin Eau Claire headline the West and East halves of the bracket, respectively. There are many returners that set some level of expectation in this bracket, but newcomers Colorado Mesa and Georgia Tech face each other in the opening round and draw attention. New Mexico State represents an unknown as well and have the tough task of facing the Blugolds in the Round of 16.
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New York and Pennsylvania have three representatives apiece in the Women’s Division III competition, and they join teams from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Vermont and Wisconsin. All the Round of 16/8 games occur on field 13, and the semifinals and final are in the stadium Sunday.
Endicott College — the reigning DIII 15s champion — and Yale University — the reigning CRC 7s champion — are the top seeds in the West and East, respectively. They both represent the DIII-rich Northeast quadrant of the country, but there is nice representation from other corners of the United States. MiraCosta College is out of the same Southern California conference in which Claremont plays regular-season ball. Western Oregon debuted last year and returns in 2025 to rep the Pacific Northwest. LeTourneau is doing Texas proud, and Drury University out of Missouri is looking to impress in its first CRC runout.
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Remember that CRC is structured a bit differently than the traditional 7s tournament. There is no pool play. The day opens with the Round of 16 and then flows into championship and consolation brackets. For example, the Round of 16 winners advance to the Cup quarterfinals, whereas the losers proceed to the Round of 8 (R8) consolation bracket. The R8 winners continue onto a 9-12th place bracket, and the losers move to a 13-16th place bracket. For all of your CRC needs, check out the NCR app.