An extra helping of AQ’s on tap with April right around the corner

The biggest Automatic Qualifier weekend of the Spring demands your attention. Nine tournaments will send ten teams to Maryland, including a potential dark horse in the Men’s Premier Cup. This weekend also serves as a great chance to get a look at some of the contenders in the Men’s and Women’s Division II and Division III fields, as those qualifiers have been somewhat lagging behind the rest.

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Fighting Irish 7s

The only double qualifier on the weekend, the Fighting Irish 7s tournament will add a team to the field in both the Men’s Premier Cup bracket and the Men’s DI-AA bracket in Maryland. And while the fields for both divisions look pretty stacked, there’s plenty of room for some dark-horse teams to secure a spot since many of the top teams are already locked in. 

Hosts Notre Dame punched their ticket a month ago, but haven’t taken their foot off the gas. They finished third in an incredibly competitive Ruck the Rock field last weekend and should be candidates to place at home on Saturday. Wheeling, the team that clinched their spot by winning Ruck the Rock, are also looking to keep the momentum building with a top finish this weekend. Indiana is another Premier Cup team that already has a guaranteed spot, while Kentucky and Iowa have clinched spots in the DI-AA bracket and are now looking to sharpen their knives against top-tier teams.

That leaves plenty of room for teams who still have something on the line – like Iowa Central, Aquinas, Thomas More, Walsh, and Rio Grande – to earn some statement wins. If any one of those teams can finish among the top contenders this weekend they’ll find themselves with a freshly-minted pass to the CRC and the confidence that they’ll know what to do when they get there.

The DI-AA field features two battle-hardened teams that have already joined the Great Game in Grand Valley State, who will compete in the DII bracket, and Louisville, who are fresh off a tournament victory at Sandman 7s last weekend. This provides a good chance for a team like Northeastern, who did not make the cut in 2025, to lock in a spot in 2026. The Huskies will look to All-American Charlie Beney and Ryan Esfahanian to lead the way. This tournament will also provide college rugby fans with a rematch of this Fall season’s hotly-contested Men’s DII semifinal between GVSU and the University of Chicago, albeit in a different code.

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Old Blue 7s

Memorial Field in Mount Vernon, NY, will be turned into a battle site on Saturday as a litany of equally-matched teams will battle for another Men’s Premier Cup spot. All four semifinalists from last year’s tournament have returned in 2026 including top finishers St. Bonaventure – though the Bonnies have already secured their CRC berth for this season. 

Siena, last year’s runners up at Old Blue 7s, may well finish in that same spot in this year’s iteration, which would open up their pathway to another deep run in the national championship tournament. They certainly have the horses to hang with the big dogs thanks to All-Stars like Jack Burns and Harry Ryder. They’ll have to try and best teams like Babson, Fairfield, UMass and UConn to start, though, which can be a tall order. 

The Saints will also have to deal with a surprisingly strong Fordham side that upset Kutztown in the semifinals at Frostbite 7s earlier this season. All-Stars Gavin McNicholl, Lenny Manning, and Adam Radmall have had an excellent Spring so far for the Rams. 

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Bonnies 7s

While St. Bonaventure plies their trade in the Women’s Premier Cup division, the team is welcoming a number of DII contenders to their campus this weekend for a tournament that will provide a pathway to Maryland for a team in a lower division and provide some valuable game minutes for their B-Side. 

The Bonnies B’s are in a pool with Syracuse, CRC qualifiers in 2025, Colombia, Kent State, and Siena, who should not be taken lightly after the performance that Olivia McQuhae, Gabriella Jimenez, and Tallulah Powers put on in the Fall. The second pool of teams features Fairfield, Norwich, Adrian, Niagara, and the University at Buffalo. This is the first of two AQ’s Norwich will attend this Spring and the third of seven tournaments on their schedule this season. All-American Carlyan Vigbedor, along with Lillie Ells and Alyssa Gioia, has the Cadets humming along so far. 

Fairfield also looked very good in an at-large tournament they hosted at the beginning of the month. They beat Fordham, Marist, and Stony Brook by a combined score of 112-7. Molly Muller had four tries in those three matches, as did teammate Jill Koppy. And Niagara have been testing themselves against top-level teams throughout the Spring, which they hope will have sharpened their edges enough to make them a serious threat. 

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Powerful Women on the Pitch

Baldwin Wallace University is celebrating Women’s History Month with its fifth annual Powerful Women on the Pitch tournament, which also serves as an Automatic Qualifier for the Women’s DIII bracket. The Yellow Jackets are the prohibitive favorites to take the top spot in their own shindig as they look to follow up on a strong campaign at last year’s CRCs where they fell to Endicott in the final. All-Stars Molly Cancian and Jasmine Ludt will lead the charge against a field consisting of competitors Alfred University, Denison, Gannon, Robert Morris, and the University of Rochester. 

The Rochester Sledgehammers looked strong at their own Jamboree tournament in late February. The Alfred Saxons have a lot of rugby under their belt after this Spring, having put in a good shift at both Frostbite 7s and Richmond 7s.

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Peachtown 7s 

Colorado Mesa hosts the second High Peaks qualifier on the weekend, and the second one on our list for Women’s DII. The Mavericks have played a couple of tune up tournaments so far this Spring and look ready to return to Maryland and potentially make an even deeper run after falling last year to the eventual national champs, Coast Guard, in round two. All-American Reese Williams, along with Kaylee Burns and Bentley Stayert, should power CMU to a tournament win that will secure not only a CRC berth, but also bragging rights over the entire state of Utah. The pool of teams that they will face features the most U’s ever assembled as CMU will play SUU (Southern Utah), UOU (University of Utah), and UTU (Utah Tech).

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Bluff City 7s 

A full complement of teams from the South will head to Tennessee for this year’s iteration of the Bluff City 7s tournament, which will send the winningest Men’s DII team on the weekend to Maryland in April. 

Hosts Memphis, led by All-American Caleb Schmidt, have played good rugby so far this Spring, going 3-1 at Gold Wing 7s and 4-1 at home for their Shamrock 7s tournament. But at the last Automatic Qualifier tournament they attended, St. Patrick’s 7s, the Tigers went 2-2. This tournament is their last shot to get back to the big dance and potentially improve on their first round exit in 2025.

To get there, Memphis will have to best teams like Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Missouri S&T – who hosted the Tigers for St. Patrick’s 7s – and Tennessee Tech, who were also bounced in round one at last year’s tournament. 

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Written by Zach Lanning of The College Rugby Show.