This continually updated tracker will aid coverage of 2022-23 collegiate 15s rugby competitions, which begin in September. As the year progresses, this post will reflect changes to spring-based and 7s competitions. Send updates to Jackie Finlan.
NIRA
• Davenport University is now a DII NCAA varsity program and will compete in DII NIRA. In 2021-22, the Panthers competed in the College Rugby Association of America (CRAA), featured in the Fall 2021 DI Championship against Navy, and won the Red Division at the R7CC.
• Princeton University is now a DI NCAA varsity program and will compete in DI NIRA. Most recently, the Tigers featured in the R7CC and finished 3rd in the Red Division behind Navy and Davenport.
• Newberry College will debut in D2 with Emily Roskopf at the helm.
• D3 Guilford College plays its first games in NIRA after first forming in 2019.
• Lots of coaching changes: Ros Chou at Brown University (Kitt Wagner Ruiz joins as an asst. coach), Jeff Horton at Guilford College, Tara Roberts at New England College, Alex Artus at Colby-Sawyer College, Mike Bowen at Adrian College, and Joey Rasmus at Long Island Univ. Lander has elevated Ken Pape from assistant to head coach. Katie Wurst has left Queens Univ. of Charlotte to become the assistant athletics director at Warren Wilson College, and Dana Meschisi has been elevated to head coach.
RELATED
• Frostburg State Univ. (Md.) has added women’s rugby to its NCAA varsity programs and the DII team will take the pitch in fall 2023. A head coach search has commenced.
• The U.S. Naval Academy has upgraded men’s and women’s rugby to varsity sports, but the women aren’t joining NIRA until fall 2023. Navy is the reigning DI Fall CRAA 15s champion.
• List of high schoolers (and collegiate transfers) entering the college rugby sphere in fall 2022. This is a comprehensive list and includes non-varsity programs.
NCR
• NCR will now offer three tiers of women’s college rugby: Small college, Division II and Division I. Read more.
• The DI Big 10 conference is moving from CRAA to NCR and will compete in the NCR 15s DI season. That’s Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Notre Dame and Ohio State.
• The Great Waters conference has absorbed four Illinois teams that will compete in DI: Univ. Illinois, Illinois State, Northern Illinois & Western Illinois.
• The Lonestar conference includes 13 small colleges and DI teams, and they are all joining NCR for 2022-23.
CRAA
The DI Elite competition is shifting to a fall-based calendar and will contest its national 15s championship at the end of the calendar year (Dec. 3 @ Charlotte, N.C. – see full women’s rugby calendar). Now teams will have distinct 7s and 15s seasons. Central Washington and Life Univ. have released their fall schedules so far.
ACRA, which was arguably the best-run women’s college rugby competition last year, has joined CRAA starting fall 2022. This isn’t really a surprise, as ACRA, which is mostly DII schools in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions, collaborated with CRAA’s DII Rocky Mountain schools – the only CRAA teams looking for a fall 15s and spring 7s schedule. Those partnerships will continue.
All Comments
Great article updating the evolving structure organization of Women’s College Rugy. There are two points you raised that I wish to comment on:
1. Womens College Rugby appears to be consolidating 15s Championships to Fall and 7s to Spring. Championships for; Elite, NIRA, NCR, ACRA and most CRAA will now be held in the same seasons. This will be good for Womens College Rugby as it provides focused seasons for planning and scheduling. I suspect the remaining CRAA teams that play off season (7s in Fall and 15s in Spring) will change over the next few years simply to have teams to play against.
2. For NIRA to continue to expand they must provide support for teams outside of the East coast. My local team, Davenport, has joined NIRA but there are no local NIRA D1 or D2 teams (within 1,200 miles round trip) for them to compete against. Other NIRA schools have not necessarily committed to traveling to Michigan to play Davenport for the Fall 2022 season. It is possible the only way Davenport will have a NIRA schedule is if they are willing to travel every weekend to the East coast.
Davenport has always had the benefits of being a full varsity program even though they were not a part of NIRA, i.e.., significant number of athletic and academic scholarships, paid coach, trainers, tutors, paid travel and lodging, free kits and equipment. Davenport could have remained a part of the Big 10 and may have been better off to do so. As it is they may be scrambling this Fall searching for teams to play if no NIRA team is willing to travel to Michigan. This was a problem Davenport faced for years prior to being accepted into the Big 10. Hopefully NIRA will encourage other NIRA teams to support the expansion of Womens Varsity rugby by committing to share travel challenges with Davenport.
Keep up the good work. I enjoy your articles.
Best regards,
Dave Milewski