Upsets abounded on day one of the Women’s Division III Regional playoffs as two of the top five teams in the country lost their opening round matchups to unranked opponents.

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The first titan to fall was #4 UW - Platteville, who succumbed to a spicy Siena side 29-17. The Pioneers found themselves down by ten points early on after Gabriel Jimenez and Tallulah Powers scored two unconverted tries for the Saints. But the favorites in this match were able to even the score out again by the halftime whistle thanks to the efforts of Thea Kirkpatrick and Jordan Kamenz.

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Both teams traded blows to start the second half, with Siena’s Kayla Wronski landing the first punch and Platteville’s Mallory Brewer responding soon after. But the Pioneers failed to land the knockout blow and it will now have to watch as the Saints go marching on to the next round after Wronski scored the go ahead try, her second of the match, and teammate Keira Vickers punctuated the victory with a score in the 75th minute.

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That upset was perhaps overshadowed by the #2 team in the nation, Wayne State, falling to unranked UW Stevens Point – a team that Platteville beat 46-29 in the Great Lakes Conference Championship. The Pointers warmed up before the match to the Baja Men’s classic hit ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’ and proceeded to answer that question by unleashing themselves upon the unsuspecting Wildcats. 

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Olivia Yoerger led the way with a hattrick for UWSP while teammate Grace Farrell contributed two tries of her own. Willow Schroeder and Adrienne Cohoon also scored for the pointers with Meghan Rank nailing two conversions. Wayne State’s Genevieve Sovereign did her darndest to keep the Wildcats in this match with a hattrick of her own as well as three made conversion kicks. But her points, along with a try by All-American Mary McKulsky, were not enough to overcome the litany of knock-ons and handling errors committed by the favorites. Wayne State has yet to exorcise their first-round demons, as they fell to North Dakota 41-40 last year in the first round in a game they lead by double digits.

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There were top teams in DIII who handled their business on Saturday, however, beginning with #3 East Stroudsburg who made an incredibly loud statement with their 140-0 win over Hofstra. Inside center Tara Bogansky led the team with four tries in the match and ten successful conversions. Flyhalf Ashlyn Mugavero, on the other hand, only scored three times, while teammates Abigail Collins and Bethany Weise scored twice. There were literally not enough lines on the referee’s scoresheet to track all the tries that were scored in this game as the Warriors announced to the rest of the Division that they came to play. 

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The next team to face the wrath of the Warriors will be #SUNY Cortland, who made a strong opening statement of their own with a 53-39 win over MARC Champions Christopher Newport. The first half of the match belonged to Christopher Newport, however, and, more specifically, to winger Sara Murray who had four tries in the first 40 minutes of the contest including two scores in the first ten minutes of the game. Cortland tried their best to keep pace, with two scores by scrumhalf Grace Loretto and a try by Haileigh Rhodes, but two scores by Newport’s Carson Mickles and another by Olivia Wood, along with two conversions by Mikayla Parker, put the Captains up 39-17 at the break.

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The Peacefrogs, however, seemed to lull their opponents into a false sense of security as they completely dominated the second half, scoring 36 unanswered points to secure the win. Fullback Erin Anderson had two tries in the final 40 minutes while Loretto completed her hattrick with a third score early on. Despite the excellent display of their late game, come-from-behind credentials, Cortland will not want to fall behind against East Stroudsburg in the Regional Final on Sunday.

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Back out West, #7 Colorado School of Mines and #12 Northern Michigan made strong statements in their opening games, handling #14 North Dakota and #10 SUNY Geneseo respectively. Mines, last year’s runners up, held their opponent to just 5 points while pouring in 59 of their own aided by two scores from Amy Sessions and Aliya Lynn along with one try and five conversions from Piper Lee. Ghoul Vucinovich was the lone try scorer for North Dakota. 

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The Mules are now the one on upset alert as they prepare to face off against an incredibly confident Pointers team in the Regional finals. Northern Michigan will go from the hunter, after upsetting Geneseo 79-15, to the hunted as they face off against the unranked Siena side that toppled Platteville.

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All of the upsets must have made #1 Endicott thankful for their first round bye. The Gulls will now face off against #9 Colby College, who won another slugfest against conference rival Middlebury 15-12. Colby fell behind 8-0 before three straight scores by Leila Gerry, Annika Mannix, and Mira Gardner pushed them through to the next round.

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Tomorrow's matches will be be streamed live on NCR's YouTube channel. For more college rugby news, check out TheCollegeRugbyShow.com.