Some good teams playing without their best players made for a topsy-turvy Stanford Invite to headline a relatively quiet weekend at the top.
March 10, 2025 by Alex Rubin in Preview, Recap
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Throughout the spring season, we’ll publishing a bite-sized weekly recap of the action across the college division. This will serve as a supplement to our standard tournament reporting and offer a high-level look at the latest happenings and the biggest stories of the week.
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D-I Women’s Division
It was a quieter week in the D-I Women’s division with just a single ranked team in action. There was plenty of regional action to highlight though:
Around the Division
- #20 Western Washington Chaos destroyed all challengers at PACcon. Three of their six wins were bagels and only Oregon State scored more than one goal against them.
- Tennessee Big Orange Screw won The Only Tenn I See with upsets over Clemson Tiger Lilies on both Saturday and Sunday.
- McGill MUT won Too Hot to Handle. They went 4-0 and only gave up ten total points.
- San Diego State Gnomes rolled through their home tournament, going 6-0 to win Gnomageddon. UC Irvine Grass Ninjas were dominant on the weekend until the last game; they suffered their first loss of the season to San Diego State in the final.
- D-III’s Williams Nova went undefeated and won the Strong Island Invitational. NYU Purple Reign upset Rutgers Nightshade to make the final.
- Delaware Sideshow went undefeated against conference competition at the Towsontown Throwdown. Sideshow’s Casey James was probably the best player at the tournament, piloting their team through heavy upwind downwind play. Towson Hammertime went 2-1 in the round robin format, beating Johns Hopkins and Maryland B. The Blue-Footed Boobies struggled missing Julia Richardson (club player for DC Grit) and Emily Liang (club player for Baltimore Wave). – Recap submitted by Coach Xavier Stewart
Looking Ahead
It is looking like another quiet week in the division with just a few regional events happening. Two weeks from now, many ranked teams will be in action at Northwest Challenge and Centex, but for this week our eyes will be on Davenport Spring Skirmish, Spring Spook, Tally Classic XIX, Southerns, and South Hill Slam.
D-I Men’s Division
Slugs Surprise in Stanford
#14 UC Santa Cruz Slugs are the champions of 2025’s Stanford Invite, which thankfully returned to Stanford’s campus this season. The Slugs overcame #7 Cal Poly SLO SLOCORE in the semifinals and soon-to-be-ranked Western Washington Dirt in the final. Dirt took down ranked teams in pool play (#12 Cal Ursa Major) and the bracket (#22 UBC Thunderbirds), each by a single goal.
The tournament was played during a Team USA U24 practice weekend, so many of the top teams were without their best players. Cal Poly played this weekend without the services of O-line regulars Anton Orme, Kyle Lew, and Alex Nelson. Cal were without Dexter Clyburn. Western Washington made their run to the final without Cedar Hines.
Seven games were streamed from the tournament. Subscribers can watch them in our video library. Stay tuned for fuller coverage of this event with an entry into our Tournament Talk series coming later today and check out the final recap below!
UC Santa Cruz vs. Western Washington: Stanford Invite Men’s Final Recap
Around the Division
- Deleware Sideshow won their home tournament, First State Invite, with an undefeated weekend.
- MIT Grim Beaver beat Harvard Red Line to finish the MIT Invite round robin with the best record. MIT did lose to Northeastern C during the first round of the tournament, though.
- D-III’s Bates Orange Whip won the Grand Northeastern Invite over Northeastern B.
Looking Ahead
The biggest event next week is Centex, which always draws a fun crowd of bubble teams looking to bolster their case for a bid to Nationals. Other regional action includes: Grand Rapids Invite, Natalie’s Animal Rescue, Spring Spook, Tally Classic XIX, Southerns, Palouse Open, Silicon Valley Rally
D-III Women’s Division
New Northwest Pecking Order
Many expected #9 Portland UPRoar to take a step back after losing two key pieces to their championship run last year. But that step back was envisioned more as “they might struggle to make semis” than losing the regional crown to a team that went 1-4 at 2024 Nationals.
And yet, all results so far point to such a usurping. When #10 Lewis & Clark upset Portland at D3GP, context – last game of the tournament, Portland coming off a close loss to the top team while Lewis & Clark had a buy – led some staffers to excuse Portland’s loss as a blip. PACcon however firmly silenced any doubts, as Artemis emerged on top first in pool play and then in the 3rd place game, holding UPRoar to seven scores both times.
Headlined by stat-stuffing returners Katelyn Osborne, Mira Larrance, Amelie Steer, Rosa Rudolph and Mikah Keetch alongside standout rookie Anika Alschuler, it’s no longer a question of making Nationals; Artemis’ big time glow-up has them in pole position to challenge #7 Whitman for the Northwest crown.
Around the Division
- #24 Claremont Greenshirts took the field for the second straight weekend at Gnomegeddon, and finished fifth at a tournament largely populated by D-I teams.
- #12 Wellesley Whiptails, Colby Center for Disc Control, and #15 Bates Cold Front, finished second, third, and fourth respectively at Too Hot to Handle.
- #14 Williams Nova went undefeated and won the Strong Island Invitational against D-I competition.
Looking Ahead
#11 Davenport Panthers will host #18 Michigan Tech Superior Mas and Oberlin Preying Manti at their home tournament–Davenport Spring Skirmish. Additionally, #5 Middlebury Pranksters will travel down to Florida to play at Tally Classic XIX.
D-III Men’s Division
Around the Division
- #7 Whitman Sweets played against D-I competition at Stanford Invite. They hung tightly to D-I’s seventh-ranked team, Cal Poly SLO, and made it to the bracket, where they lost in pre-quarters to Virginia Tech Burn.
- #11 Bates Orange Whip won the Grand Northeastern Invite over Northeastern B. Colby Center for Disc Control finished third.
Looking Ahead
There is lots of interesting action on the table this week:
- #3 Oklahoma Christian Eagles will be at Centex
- #14 Oberlin Flying Horsecows will play at Miami (Ohio)’s Spring Spook.
A full team list has yet to be announced for Grand Rapids Invite, but we expect a good handful of D-III teams to travel to Davenport’s backyard.
