College Regionals 2021: Weekend Two Preview

19 tournaments this weekend, with Nationals bids in all four divisions on the line!

November 12, 2021 by Mags Colvett in Preview with 0 comments

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With the first wave of 2021 College Regionals tournaments behind us, we enter the busiest weekend of the Nationals-qualifying season, with 19 (count ’em: 19) events across six regions and action in all four college divisions. Here’s a look ahead at what’s happening in the Metro East, New England, North Central, Ohio Valley, South Central, and Southwest regions in week two.

Metro East D-III Women’s Regionals

Location: Williamstown, MA
Weather: Rain with temps in the 50s on Saturday; partly cloudy with temps in the 40s on Sunday
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Wesleyan
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 qualifying teams:

• Connecticut College
• #21 Rochester
• #22 SUNY Fredonia
• #15 Vassar
• #17 Wesleyan

If you’re any one of these programs, you have to like the ratio of Nationals bids to total number of teams competing at this tournament, and you might not be wrong to think you have a real shot at joining the 40% who advance. Vassar just eked out an 11-10 win over Wesleyan to come out on top of their three-team round robin in Conferences, where Connecticut College stayed reasonably competitive with both; as for Rochester and SUNY Fredonia, the one-game event that kicked off their Series run ended 7-6 for Rochester, hardly a definitive result for either side. Between a gray November forecast and a slate of games where no win is guaranteed, the theme of the weekend is clear: be confident, but don’t get too comfortable. (Seeding and schedule unavailable at press time.)

Metro East D-III Men’s Regionals

Location: Granby, MA
Weather: Scattered showered with highs around 60 on Saturday; partly cloudy with highs around 50 on Sunday
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Hamilton
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #23 Colgate
2. Rochester
3. Vassar
4. SUNY Geneseo
5. Wesleyan
6. Hamilton
7. College of New Jersey

In an eerie parallel of the women’s Series so far, Vassar, Wesleyan, and Connecticut College also played an ultra-close Conferences, ultimately to the same finish as their respective women’s counterparts (although this Vassar team only won on point differential after a somewhat less close 15-12 loss to Wesleyan). It’s ranked team Colgate, though, who enters as the first seed, having won their Conference in pool play before the other teams fought it out in the placement bracket — but not without taking a 13-11 loss to Rochester along the way. There’s no uncatchable frontrunner for the regional title here, and the second bid to Nationals is even less assured. And hey, none of those teams has even played bottom-seeded College of New Jersey in the Series yet! It’s D-III in the Metro East in fall 2021: are you so sure anything can’t happen?

New England D-I Women’s Regionals

Location: Amherst, MA
Weather: Rain with temps in the high 50s on Saturday; mostly cloudy with highs around 50 on Sunday
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Dartmouth (not attending in 2021), Northeastern (not attending in 2021), Tufts
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #13 Tufts
2. #14 Vermont
3. Brown
4. MIT
5. Massachusetts
6. Boston University

Often one of the more dramatic regions in the division, the drama this year seems likely to be contained to: well, who’s taking first? And if the two top-seeded teams do indeed secure this region’s two bids to Nationals, they may have the chops to make deep bracket runs. Vermont has been knocking at the door for years, and despite losing a number of key veterans, in a Dartmouth-less, Northeastern-free fall Series, there’s never been a better chance to finally reach the show. Meanwhile, Tufts’ new guard is ready to show they can keep Ewo one of the top programs in the division. As for the rest of the field, MIT’s depth could make them competitive, as could UMass’s leading duo of Tess Johnson and Adrena Seferian. But it would take a mighty push for any lower seed at this tournament to upset the apple cart.

New England D-I Men’s Regionals

Location: Rehoboth, MA
Weather: Scattered showers with temps around 60 on Saturday; mostly sunny with temps around 50 on Sunday
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Brown, Northeastern, Tufts
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #5 Brown
2. #14 Northeastern
3. Vermont
4. #25 Tufts
5. #17 Massachusetts
6. Boston University
7. Dartmouth
8. Boston College
9. MIT
10. Harvard

There are question marks all over the division, but New England feels particularly rife with them, with so much having changed since Brown won their second consecutive regional title in 2019. How much have Jacques Nissen and Leo Gordon developed for Brown? How does Northeastern look with a disc-dominant player like Gus Norrbom at the helm? How does Tufts handle the loss of so many key vets? Will anybody in college be able to stop UMass’s Orion Cable? Is this finally the year Vermont breaks through, after adding Oregon’s Kuochuan Ponzio to a group that has been building up club talent the past few seasons? That makes for a lot of possible outcomes this weekend, and the difference between one forking path and another will come down to who can close out games efficiently, who steps up in clutch moments, and where the matchups land.

New England D-III Women’s Regionals

Location: Williamstown, MA
Weather: Rain with temps in the 50s on Saturday; partly cloudy with temps in the 40s on Sunday
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Bates, Williams, Middlebury, Mount Holyoke (not attending in 2021)
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #5 Amherst
2. #4 Middlebury
3. #8 Williams
4. #20 Stonehill
5. #9 Bates
6. #25 Brandeis

You read those #s right: every single team at this tournament made Ultiworld’s preseason Power Rankings, four of them inside the top ten. The region that sent a full quarter of the last D-III Nationals qualifiers to Texas in 2019 across both gender divisions will dial it back to two bids each for women’s and men’s this year, and contention on both sides could get hot.

2019 national finalists Bates may have gone 0-2 in a three-team, three-game round robin Conferences with Middlebury and Williams, but every matchup that breezy, drizzly Saturday in Vermont finished within a point or two, and no one played out more than fifteen points total per round. Middlebury is the regional power to beat (Claire Babbott-Bryan returns after leading Boston Siege in assists at club Nationals a few weeks ago, and the Pranksters are poised to continue the momentum of a quarters finish in 2019 and a deep, athletic recruiting class in 2020 through fall and spring), but another tournament could make all the difference for any one of these teams. Meanwhile, Stonehill and Amherst looked a step ahead of Brandeis at their Conferences, but played closely with each other. It’s hard to call anyone a definite favorite here, and depending on how the weekend goes, it’s possible whoever places third will have a real case for being one of the best D-III teams not in SoCal in December.

New England D-III Men’s Regionals

Location: Easton, MA
Weather: Scattered showers with temps around 60 on Saturday; mostly sunny with temps around 50 on Sunday
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Middlebury, Bowdoin (not attending in 2021), Bryant, Colby (not attending in 2021)
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #5 Middlebury
2. #11 Bryant
3. #12 Brandeis
4. Amherst
5. Williams
6. Roger Williams
7. Bates College
8. Stonehill

Like its women’s division counterpart, this tournament could end up looking pretty stacked, with a defending national champion thrown in for good measure. Here, too, the historically strong Pranksters program is an imposing presence: even with significant top-end turnover from their 2019 title team, major contributors Benjamin Morris and Walker Frankenburg and 2019 Rookie of the Year Leo Sovell-Fernandez all remain in the mix. But none of the three Conference champs that fill out the top three seeds at this tournament has had an opponent score more than single digits on them in the Series so far, and they’ve yet to be tested against each other in high-stakes play. Regardless of who clears a path to Norco, we’ll know a lot more about the depth of this region by the end of Sunday.

North Central D-I Women’s Regionals

Location: Ames, IA
Weather: Mostly cloudy with temps around 40 both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Carleton (Syzygy), Wisconsin, Minnesota
2021 Nationals Bids: 1

2021 Seeding:

1. #1 Carleton (Syzygy)
2. Wisconsin Eau Claire
3. Wisconsin
4. Iowa
5. Iowa State
6. Marquette
7. Wisconsin B
8. Minnesota

When the preseason Ultiworld Power Rankings were released earlier this month, Carleton Syzygy’s placement at #1 was controversial among Ultiworld staff: didn’t we just watch a bunch of North Carolina almost beat Fury? But the best-in-the-division talent on Syzygy is impossible to deny, and with just one bid this year — a tough drop from three in 2019 — it would be a season-defining upset for any of the region’s other top teams to unseat the reigning regional champs.

Keep an eye on postseason surprise Wisconsin Eau Claire, though, who won their Conference in October after only sporadic Regionals appearances in the last several seasons, and beat out perennial top North Central finisher Wisconsin to do it. (And not to worry about Wisconsin, either: a program that can send two teams with rosters 25-plus-deep to Regionals after more than a year off is likely to be a robust presence in the division well into the future.)

North Central D-I Men’s Regionals

Location: Ames, IA
Weather: Mostly cloudy with temps around 40 both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Wisconsin, Iowa State, Minnesota
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #22 Wisconsin
2. Minnesota¹
3. Iowa
4. #4 Carleton (CUT)
5. Iowa State
6. UW Milwaukee
7. UW Whitewater
8. Nebraska
9. Marquette
10. Wisconsin B

Is that no. 4 seed for #4 Carleton CUT a nod to their current Power Ranking? Their fourth-place finish at 2019’s North Central Regionals, just shy of that year’s last Nationals spot? Or is it short for “42,” as in “42 damn players on this roster”? More likely, it’s the result of their loss to no. 2 seed Minnesota at Northwoods Conferences, placing them behind Wisconsin and Iowa as well as local foes Grey Duck going in.

As in women’s, this region sees some attrition from 2019’s abundance of bids, but does hold onto two, and in a late-breaking twist, that might translate to a place at Nationals for the third-place team at this tournament: while Minnesota stands a good chance of finishing inside the top two, school regulations will prevent them from attending Nationals if they do qualify. Even then, you can count on a team or two with reasonable hopes of earning a bid this weekend to end up on the outside looking in, and can’t count out the possibility a top seed or a legacy program will be one of them.

North Central D-III Men’s Regionals

Location: Ames, IA
Weather: Mostly cloudy with temps around 40 both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Carleton (CHOP), Michigan Tech, Luther
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #3 St. Olaf
2. #18 Luther
3. #17 Carleton (CHOP)
4. UW Platteville
5. St. Thomas
6. Michigan Tech
7. Carleton (Karls)
8. Grinnell

St. Olaf were all but untouchable at Northwoods Conferences in October, allowing four points tops from any of St. Thomas, Bethel, or Carleton CHOP² or Karls; Luther were similarly unscathed after their Conferences, but had only Grinnell A and B to contend with. Platteville and Michigan Tech’s first fall Series tournament was a grittier affair, with all six games between three teams³ finishing within one to three points of each other, and no team all weekend scoring double digits in any of them.

It’s hard to know how the top finishers will look against one another in regional competition, but with two bids to go around, St. Olaf has a good chance of sending the men’s team to Nationals for the first time since 2015; if they do, they’ll have to hold onto the baton for a women’s team who missed qualifying in 2021 for the first time in even longer. With a path through the backdoor bracket that’s sure to feel even more arduous in late-autumn Iowa, though, any team who doesn’t make their way to the first place game will have to bring plenty of D-III grind and North Central hardiness to remain in contention for a bid.

Ohio Valley D-I Women’s Regionals

Location: Hilliard, OH
Weather: Cloudy on Saturday and mixed rain and snow on Sunday, with temps in the 40s and wind of 13-15 MPH both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Ohio State, Pittsburgh
2021 Nationals Bids: 3

2021 Seeding:

1. #9 Pittsburgh
2. #21 Ohio
3. Ohio State
4. Case Western Reserve
5. Pennsylvania
6. Temple
7. Dayton
8. Carnegie Mellon

Since 2014, Ohio State and Pittsburgh have been taking two-year turns with the Ohio Valley crown, with Ohio State holding the title for the last two seasons after it went to Pittsburgh in 2016 and 2017. That pattern seems likely to continue into 2021 and 2022, with Pittsburgh poised to top the region in back-to-back Series this fall and spring. Danger benefits from both a powerful class of extended eligibility players and plenty of young talent, plus some crossover on both ends of the roster⁴ with 2021 breakout club team Pittsburgh Parcha that’s likely to carry chemistry, experience, and ferocious enthusiasm into the fall.

Meanwhile, no. 2 seed Ohio isn’t usually as prominent in the bid conversation, but their results from Conferences (including a tenacious 8-5 win over Ohio State for first) reflect a team that’s learned to maximize their short roster, particularly with a zone style that’s well-adapted to the lower Midwest climate. Their games this weekend will tell us more about how they do in a longer tournament with a deeper field — though if Sunday’s forecast holds, conditions may be ideal for the Stacked Cats to stack a few more dubs on their way to a Nationals appearance.

As for defending champs Ohio State, they’re taking the return-to-play year at a different pace, with none of the names that have defined the team on the national stage returning for the fall Series after much of their best-known talent graduated between 2019 and 2020. Still, the program retains much of its promising 2020 recruiting class and strong coaching and cultural continuity, as well as sneaky veteran leadership in D-III alums Bailey Perkins (formerly of Xavier) and Milo Eder (formerly of Kenyon).

With three bids in the offing and only one looking entirely locked up before the weekend, we’ll almost certainly see some new faces at Nationals this year, wearing familiar jerseys or otherwise.

Ohio Valley D-I Men’s Regionals

Location: Hilliard, OH
Weather: Cloudy on Saturday and mixed rain and snow on Sunday, with temps in the 40s and wind of 13-15 MPH both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Ohio State, Pittsburgh
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #6 Pittsburgh
2. #12 Ohio State
3. Temple
4. Cincinnati
5. Case Western Reserve
6. Carnegie Mellon
7. Pennsylvania
8. Penn State
9. Dayton

For all that’s changed in this world between April 2019 and now, it’s safe to expect the first place game to look a lot like the most recent Ohio Valley D-I men’s final, with both Pittsburgh and Ohio State sending veteran-heavy rosters with many key pieces from the teams that took the region’s two bids last time around. Both are odds-on favorites to advance to Nationals, where they’ll look to improve on matching 2019 exits in quarters; the closest challenger to either at Conferences were West Penn runners-up Carnegie Mellon, who played Pittsburgh to a 13-8 loss in their final, although East Penn champs and overall 3-seed Temple are as yet untested against the west.

Ohio Valley D-III Women’s Regionals

Location: Hilliard, OH
Weather: Cloudy on Saturday and mixed rain and snow on Sunday, with temps in the 40s and wind of 13-15 MPH both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Oberlin
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #6 Lehigh
2. #24 Kenyon
3. Swarthmore
4. Oberlin
5. Wooster

Flash back to February 2020, the last full month of college competition before this fall. 2019 national champions Oberlin Manti have just gone 1-5 against top-tier D-I teams at Commonwealth Cup (albeit with a couple close losses) while, on the same weekend, 2019 middle-of-Regionals team Lehigh Gravity have stormed a mix of D-I and D-III teams at UMBC Safari Party to meet D-I Towson in the final and eat their only loss of the season so far. Who do you take to advance from the Ohio Valley? We didn’t get to find out that year, but with Oberlin taking back-to-back 13-4 and 11-5 losses to Kenyon at Ohio Conferences (and first-place finishers Cedarville not in attendance this weekend), this may be Gravity’s time to rise.

Looking over the full slate of teams at this tournament, you’d barely know this was D-III if you were just eyeballing the length of the rosters: only Wooster lists fewer than 20 players for the Series, and their 17 would still be a high-tide year for many programs in the division. No matter who comes out on top this weekend, this will be an interesting space to watch over the next few years to see which names linger, which move on, and which develop into the talents that define the region in seasons to come.

Ohio Valley D-III Men’s Regionals

Location: Hilliard, OH
Weather: Cloudy on Saturday and mixed rain and snow on Sunday, with temps in the 40s and wind of 13-15 MPH both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Franciscan
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #8 Oberlin
2. #9 Kenyon
3. #10 Franciscan
4. Xavier
5. Messiah
6. Cedarville
7. Grove City
8. Swarthmore

Fifth and eighth — of eight — may look like awfully low seeds for the West and East Penn conference champions, but if Messiah and Swarthmore want to prove that evaluation wrong, they’ll have to go through the Buckeye State to do it. With a 9-8 Oberlin win over Kenyon the one head-to-head matchup between the teams that left Ohio Conferences with matching 5-1 records and only a very narrow point differential to give Oberlin the edge, this weekend’s top seeds are all but tied for the first-seed spot. But with one-point losses to each of those teams, Franciscan isn’t far behind, and it adds an interesting wrinkle to all of the above that Oberlin took their only loss of Conferences from Cedarville, who Kenyon beat handily 10-5.

Like Middlebury to the northeast, Kenyon is in a good position to send teams in both D-III divisions to Nationals this weekend. If they pull it off (or if Carleton, Michigan Tech, Truman State, Rice, or Occidental can catch up with their women’s counterparts, who already qualified earlier this fall), they’ll join the University of Richmond, whose Spidermonkeys and Redhots were the first men’s and women’s D-III duo to earn matching bids this year.

South Central D-I Women’s Regionals

Location: Austin, TX
Weather: Sunny with temps in the 70s both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Colorado, Texas
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #10 Colorado
2. #11 Texas
3. #25 Colorado College
4. Washington University
5. Kansas
6. Colorado State
7. Texas State
8. UT Dallas
9. Texas A&M
10. Arkansas

Colorado and Texas already lead the division in snazzy-looking roster announcement graphics with elaborately devised visual systems for telling you how many years in their players are, but you don’t have to look long to realize that both teams are simply stacked with veteran talent. The scariest names aren’t necessarily all returning alums, though — Clil Phillips on the field for Quandary feels like the dawn of an era — and both teams’ play in the fall Series should have interesting things to say for 2022 and beyond. Like their D-I men’s counterparts in Austin’s other two-bid Regionals tournament this weekend, they’re strong favorites to advance. It only takes one win in the right round in the right tournament to edge a favorite out on the way to a surprise Nationals appearance, and Colorado College and Wash U feel like potential surprises. But it’s been five seasons since someone aside from Colorado or Texas earned the region’s top spot.

South Central D-I Men’s Regionals

Location: Austin, TX
Weather: Sunny with temps in the 70s both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Colorado, Texas
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #2 Colorado
2. #7 Texas
3. #15 UT Dallas
4. #18 Colorado State
5. Arkansas
6. Texas State
7. Washington University
8. Texas A&M
9. Baylor
10. Missouri
11. Oklahoma
12. Colorado B
13. Texas Christian
14. Kansas
15. Denver

So, most of Colorado just played the 2021 Club Championships as Boulder Lotus, matching the pace of elite club play against known quantities like Seattle Sockeye, Atlanta Chain Lightning, and Minneapolis Sub Zero (and tweeting updates from the Mamabird account all the way). Sure, they placed last overall, but not without knocking Pittsburgh Temper out of contention on day one first — and maybe that 16th-place finish reflects a team with other things on its mind besides trying to peak in October.

Along with a Texas TUFF that look to be very substantially the same team that made a memorable push in 2019, they’re heavy favorites to advance from this tournament. If they face challenges, it’ll likely be from the tournament’s next top seeds UT Dallas or Colorado State, the latter of which ended their short 2020 inside the top 16 in both USAU and Ultiworld’s rankings (and isn’t so far removed from a Nationals run of their own in 2017, living memory for a college division with ongoing eligibility for players who were already sophomores by then).

South Central D-III Men’s Regionals

Location: Tulsa, OK
Weather: Partly cloudy with temps in the high 50s to low 60s both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Air Force, Missouri S&T
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #2 Oklahoma Christian
2. #4 Missouri S&T
3.  #13 Colorado College
4.  #20 Truman State
5. #15 Sul Ross State
6. Colorado School of Mines
7. Air Force
8. #21 Rice

The pandemic may have hit pause on Oklahoma Christian’s efforts to build a destination D-III program on the plains, but doesn’t seem to have set them back too far: while some of their banner additions for 2020’s half-season have moved on, Kyle Henke and Elliott Moore are back for 2021 after summers as major AUDL contributors that leave little doubt they’re still game-changing threats in this division.

Still, a 12-13 loss to Truman State in Conferences pool play — where Missouri S&T, by the way, won the pool on point differential, only to meet Oklahoma Christian in the final and lose 13-12 — suggests the top end of this region can vie neck-and-neck with each other when conditions are right. Don’t count out the representatives from Texas or Colorado, either: this region can legitimately compete with the D-III women’s tournament in New England, a region famously dense with small, weird schools, for sheer number of ranked teams in action this weekend, and the fight for its two bids to Nationals will be fierce.

Southwest D-I Women’s Regionals

Location: San Luis Obispo, CA
Weather: Sunny with temps in the 80s and wind around 13 MPH both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA
2021 Nationals Bids: 3

2021 Seeding:

1. #4 UC Santa Barbara
2. #5 UC San Diego
3. #6 UCLA
4. #15 UC Davis
5. #8 Stanford
6. Southern California
7. Arizona State
8. Arizona

Southwest Regionals are always an entertaining affair, especially when the region surges into one of the division’s strongest. With four top ten teams and another top 25 outfit in contention for just three bids, everyone here has their work cut out for them. It’s splitting hairs to really order the top four in any definitive way, where returning or potential All-Americans populate the top ends of the rosters. Given how many of those players weren’t in attendance for the first round of this Series, any Conference Championship results for this region should be taken with sizable grains of salt.

Southwest D-I Men’s Regionals

Location: San Luis Obispo, CA
Weather: Sunny with temps in the 80s and wind around 13 MPH both days
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Cal Poly SLO, California
2021 Nationals Bids: 2

2021 Seeding:

1. #9 Cal Poly SLO
2. #16 Stanford
3. UC Santa Cruz
4. UC San Diego
5. California
6. #19 UC Santa Barbara
7. #20 UCLA
8. UC Davis
9. USC
10. Arizona State
11. Nevada Reno
12. Grand Canyon
13. Arizona
14. Northern Arizona
15. Loyola Marymount
16. Cal State Long Beach

Only a couple steps behind the women’s division, the men’s division has just two bids for its four ranked teams. There’s a credible argument for a number of other teams that would appear in a top 35 if Power Rankings went that deep, so there will be plenty of challenges along the way for whoever emerges. Few teams can match the breadth of SLO’s best players, making the real fight here for second and third. Multiple contenders here have stars scattered across their rosters, so the crown will likely come down to how the other players on kill lines perform.

Southwest D-III Men’s Regionals

Location: Claremont, CA
Weather: Sunny with temps in the high 80s
2019 Nationals Qualifiers: Claremont
2021 Nationals Bids: 1

2021 Seeding:

1. Occidental
2. #22 Claremont
3. Caltech

A Sunday morning-to-midday three-team round robin will close out the weekend’s events, with weather in SoCal that wouldn’t feel out of place if the games were being played in the spring (good thing USAU put the mid-December College Championships in nearby Norco instead of sticking with 2020’s plan to hold both tournaments in the Midwest). Occidental and Claremont are the usual Nationals suspects from this region, and either is a fair candidate for the bid. Both send noticeably longer rosters to the Series than the ten total players carrying the Caltech banner this year. Still, there aren’t many Regionals formats where depth matters so much less than showing up at the right times, literally and figuratively. It’s 2021: aren’t we all sort of winners for being here?

1. Ranked #13 before news broke that they wouldn’t attend College Championships. ↩

2. The primary Carleton D-III men’s team, formerly known as GoP. ↩

3. Including Regionals non-qualifier Carthage. ↩

4. As well as the coaching staff, which welcomes Erica Baken this year along with returning Laurens Boyle and Franke. ↩