ARC Teams Dominate NCR D1 Playoffs; Here's Why

11.24.2025College Men

Queens challenged themselves early to learn how to win. Photo Will Fagan.

Author: Alex Goff

Overall through the NCR Men's D1 playoffs, ARC teams are 8-1.

And that one loss? To another ARC team. All four semifinalists slated to play the weekend of December 6 are from the same conference.

A day after St. Bonaventure surprised everyone with a lopsided win over Brown, Walsh beat Marian in a tight one, Belmont Abbey beat Notre Dame, and Queens beat Wheeling.

St. Bonaventure Beats Brown>>

Walsh Over Marian

This was the closest game Walsh ran out to a 17-7 lead thanks to a nifty run by flyhalf Jake Tolhoek, and then a weird play in which scrumhalf Clemente Aguirre's wide pass was batted down by a Marian defender, and the ball rolled in-goal where Aguirre chased it down.

But the half ended with Marian pressuring in the Walsh 22. The Cavaliers made two huge goalline stands and got out of trouble, but well past full time flyhalf Joe Martindale sidestepped his way through multiple defenders to close the gap at the break.

Midway through the second half Walsh was on the attack when a loose pass was toed ahead by fullback MacKenzie Bridges. Walsh had to scramble and Bridges had kicked it well. The ball bounced up for him and he was in under the posts to make it 21-17 Knights.

Tolhoek slotted a well-taken penalty goal. That was a smart decision—take points when you're not really close to scoring a try and keep the game close. Marian opted for the same thing but missed. But that showed the wisdom of the option as Walsh still had to kick back to the Knights and they still were able to exert pressure. Eventually, scrumhalf Tommasso Lorenzetti sniped and offloaded to an onrushing Clay Peters, who powered on for the try.

Marian now led 28-20. Another Tolhoek penalty and it was 28-23.

With 11 minutes to go Walsh took the lineout and drove the maul. The Marian forwards topped the drive, but they ran it wide and center Nicola Bitossi ran in underneath and carried his tackler over the line. Conversion good and it was 30-28.

Walsh disrupted brilliantly to end this game. They had 10 minutes left and really didn't allow Marian to get anywhere near scoring position.

Bonnies

FINAL

11.22.25

Brown

Cardinals

FINAL

11.23.25

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Queens

Belmont Abbey

FINAL

11.23.25

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Notre Dame

MU Knights

FINAL

11.23.25

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Cavaliers

Belmont Abbey Over Notre Dame

The Crusaders continued their strong run. Take out their loss to Walsh where they had to rest some players, Abbey has won the other last four games, all against ranked teams, by an average score of 41-17.

Belmont Abbey charged out of the blocks and led 41-5 at the break. Notre Dame was basically out of the frame by then. They battled back but it was way, way too far to go.

Six different Abbey players scored tries: Louis Fahey, Oliver Fussell, Grayson Denton, Ka'ron Young, Jean Teson, and Samuel Patch, while Harry Tui'sila added 14 points with the boot.

Queens Over Wheeling

The Wheeling Cardinals can score from anywhere, but they can also be bottled up. These two teams tied earlier and the Royals learned a lot from that.

They took control with their pack and set the tone by holding onto the ball and running hard, making the Wheeling defenders work.

By the second half, Queens pulled away 45-28. But it was closer than that.

"We will carry significant momentum into the semifinal, backed by confident play, growing cohesion, and a belief in our championship potential," said Head Coach Tyree Reed. "As postseason pressure continues to build, Queens remains focused on the mission: compete, execute, and represent the program with pride. We remain one step closer to our championship goals, and we are not finished yet."

It's worth pointing out that Queens started their season 1-3-1. That win, however, was against a very good Kentucky side, and one of those losses was their 2nd side against Tennessee. They also lost to Navy (one of the top D1A teams), tied Wheeling, and lost by three points to St. Bonaventure. All of that taught them how to handle well-drilled, skilled teams. It got them through some close, challenging games ... like this last one.

So What Does That Mean?

It's all about tough opposition. We at GRR World Headquarters have long said that consistency of tough games helps teams win tough games. This, of course, is dependent on not suffering injuries.

And at GRR World Headquarters we also have said that the Liberty Conference is a good conference. It is. Every team gets eight games. There's consistency of fixtures. But there is not consistency of competitiveness. Witness Brown. Their average score i the Liberty was 55-10. But that's not really representative of the issue. Take away their games with Dartmouth and AIC, and the average score goes to 64-6.

Another way to look at the Liberty vs ARC. The Liberty has some very good competitiveness metrics: every team won a game (which is pretty cool), and they had seven games within a try, 19.4%, which is really good.

ARC? Five games were within a try (including two ties), which is 33% of the contests. That's astonishingly good.

What that means is every week was challenging. No other NCR conference, either through lack of games of having conference matchups that were foregone conclusions, has that.

Links

St. Bonaventure Makes Massive Statement