Army, Navy, Put Royals, Bonnies to the Sword

08.30.2026College Men

Navy surges on vs St. Bonaventure 2026.. Photo David Hughes

Navy surges on vs St. Bonaventure. Photo David Hughes

Author: Alex Goff

The two highest-profile matches of this early weekend in men's college rugby had to be two service academies taking on the two NCR D1 finalists from a year ago.

Army, who were downed by Navy in the D1A quarterfinals this past spring, faced fall 2025 NCT D1 runners up Queens at West Point.

Meanwhile, Navy, D1A runners-up last year to Cal, hosted fall 2025 NCR D1 champs St. Bonaventure.

Navy was in control from the jump. With Ed Soeder leading a forward effort maintaining continuity, and unleashing some impressive interplay among the backs, they were quickly in scoring position and center Jake Cornelius was over in traffic.

Navy defense vs Bonnies. Photo David Hughes.

Penalty trouble by St. Bonaventure opened up a chance for Navy's lineout-and-maul and they executed that well. Scrumhalf Sean Donohue took the ball off the back and popped a pass to wing Jack Skidmore, who had a massive hole and scored.

Kade Williams converted and it was 14-0.

St. Bonaventure had a promising move when center Manu Taula toed ahead a loose ball and then did it again, trying to find a way past the last defender. It had a chance but the last fly-half was blocked and Ian Bullock grabbed the ball and trundled his team out of trouble.

Navy was able to open it up with a counter on a kick, Williams fielding the ball and sending it where where Skidmore had a two-on-one. He fed center Drew Baublitz, who had drifted to the edge. Baublitz sold a dummy keep the last defender out of his way and took it into the corner.

Navy opened it up early vs St. Bonaventure. Photo David Hughes.

A brilliant counter from Bonnies fullback Matthew Joss opened up a chance for his side late in the first half, but fractured as it was, the Navy defense worked hard to get back and stop scrumhalf Troy Heroldt from finishing it off.

So it remained 19-0 at halftime. The score was soon 26-0 when less than two minutes into the second period lock Trent Goddard intercepted a pass at midfield and strode through to score under the posts.

Quick, brutal phases with no delay saw Donohue feed flanker John Masino, who couldn't be stopped. Williams hit the kick to make it 31-0. And after that Waylon Davis and finally co-captain Soeder hip-checked his way past a defender to score a popular try. Williams added a penalty goal to make it 15 points for his personal tally.

it was a pretty impressive performance by Navy against an experienced and capable St. Bonaventure side, with the shutout perhaps the more notable team achievement.

Navy vs St. Bonaventure 2026. Photo David Hughes. — Photo David Hughes.

"We have a very tight squad," said Navy Head Coach Gavin Hickie. "We've got 19 seniors this year and that has an impact. These guys have been playing together on the same pitch for the last three years. It's taken us a long time to get to the point where our backs and the team as a whole have the skill level, and the confidence, to be able to throw that ball around."

For Army, fans saw a somewhat new-look attack from the Black Knights. Able to keep the ball free in contact, Army was offloading and making rucks more of a rarity. However, the game didn't start that way. The Royals looked to play field position and did so well, eventually running flyhalf Zach Colson looping behind center Gideon Wessels and then grubbering to the corner where Agustin Mullaney chased it down. Mullany then converted the difficult conversion for a 7-0 lead.

That would be the grand total of the Queens scoring, however. Army came right back playing more traditionally direct, asking questions from the Royals defense. After several fairly hard-nosed but predictable charges ahead, scrumhalf Porter Kuebler sniped around the edge of the ruck to score. Nick Trout converted to tie the game at 7-7.

Still direct, Army scored off a maul with flanker and captain Landin Duffy doing the honors.

Then a bit of champagne rugby as the Black Knights started working the offload. And after flanker Jack Reed worked a good win, flyhalf Ilen Menon tipped on a pass as he was hit, allowing wing Matt Leslie to score.

You started to see Army open it up, as if they were asking the questions ... "seriously? You want us to play this way?"

The Black Knights scored a try from their own 22 in which four players were grabbed in the beginnings of a tackle, but no rucks were formed. Three times players offload while on their feet. At the last instance, Reed, again on a long run, was taken to ground but immediately popped the ball off the deck to No. 8 Max Doerfler.

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This was a good score for Doerfler, who went to Nelson College on one of the US Rugby Foundation scholarships but had to defer a year going to West Point because of an injury. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but now in his sophomore season the St. Thomas Aquinas product is starting at No. 8 and, it turns out, scoring tries.

Hopes for Queens were dwindling. The Army defense was a wall, now, and the Black Knights were very quick to the breakdown, and perhaps even quicker to have their tacklers roll away, allowing the poach to actually happen.

With time winding down in the first half Queens got a penalty, attacked off the lineout, and had a chance for another grubber to the corner—Queens was trying to take advantage of West Point's huge in-goal areas. But that kick rolled touch-in-goal and the half ended soon after with Army up 28-7.

Things went worse for Queens in the second half. A lineout overthrow was gathered by hooker John Benson and that set up an attack capped off by lock Liam Walsh. Trout hit his 5th out of five and it was 35-7.

A Trout 50-22 set up another chance for Army and some quick hands from Menon and Trout put center Howie Heller through. Heller followed that up with another, and then Luke Johnson scored twice and Cort Schmidling added one as Army really started to work the offloads.

Trout converted 10 out of 11 and the final score was 75-7.
"It was a good first performance," said Army Head Coach Matt Sherman. "I've been really pleased with the way this group has come together, and I thought we earned a strong performance out of the gate. What excites me even more is how much information we came away with about where we can improve. That's what matters most to us—how much better we can get from one week to the next."

It's interesting to note that both Navy and Army have signed on new and experienced assistant coaches. Colton Cariaga joined Navy this summer and his experience as a head coach provides Hickie with a staffmember who has the ability and confidence to make some big decisions and to inject some new ideas.

The same goes for the situation at Army, where Neets Gericke comes in as an Associate Head Coach, again someone who can lead and who knows how a team is run.

Both of those coaches have run teams at the USA development level, and both have coaches and played at Life University.

The other obvious trend with these two teams was how many players starring for the Academies were prominent players for American high school teams—Doerfler, Trout, and Menon for Army are obviously anems; Soeder, Baublitz, and Cornelius just three examples for Navy. With the rugby IQ floor raised, these teams have been able to raise their ceiling.