Lindenwood, Arizona See Huge Value in Early Cross-Conference Clash

11.20.2025College Men

Lindenwood looks ahead to one more weekend this fall. Photo Todd Lunow.

Author: Alex Goff

Early-season cross-border games are becoming more and more of a desired thing within D1A.

What’s perhaps interesting about it is that while in some areas those crossover games are played in order to bolster a team’s ranking, these early games are much more about player development.

The rubber meets the road in the New Year for many teams, so testing oneself early, and even losing a game, can be enormously valuable.

Witness Lindenwood taking on Arizona in Glendale, Colo. Both teams were fully aware they could lose the game, but that’s exactly why they played it.

“It was fun,” said Lindenwood Head Coach Josh Macy. “They were a good opponent and it was great that they traveled to Colorado to play. We’re trying to get as many debutants as possible on the field and challenge them and we’ve done that through the fall. One of the interesting things about coaching in college is that you get to reinvent yourself a little bit as the players change. We’ve got a way we like to play with our physicality, but we also have a lot of speed and that’s been really fun to work with.”

Lindenwood has another weekend of games coming up, with UHSP on Saturday morning, and Arkansas State on Saturday night. UHSP’s development, playing a lot of 7s, has been tightly linked with Lindenwood, who are always up for a game. In fact, some of the Lindenwood players thought this fixture was 7s.

“I had to tell them, no, they’re playing 15s now,” said Macy. “We know we have to continue to help develop teams in our region and UHSP is great because they are always excited to play us.”

Lions

FINAL

11.15.25

UA Wildcats

Arizona, which lost the matchup with the Lions, also saw great value in the game. Last year Arizona played in the CRAA Fall Classic and lost to Mount St. Mary’s, an early, tough game that fired them up for a strong season for the Wildcats.

“We’re be back to the Fall Classic,” said Arizona DOR Sean Duffy. “We just want to var our competitions. This game with Lindenwood had the same vibe. We got a lot out of it, and we were up 14-10 at halftime. But we’ve been playing games and winning them this fall but it’s so helpful to raise the level and learn from the game. We saw that last year. I don’t think we play as well against Saint Mary’s if we hadn’t played that tough game in the Fall Classic.”

Duffy said he saw the effort and the enthusiasm, but not always the execution, and that’s to be expected. But as he looks ahead to the New Year, the last four games, against Arizona State, Colorado, Cal Poly, and Lindenwood, win or lose (and Arizona was 3-1 in those games) are valuable.

As for as played go, Central Washington transfer in Chris Grosse has stepped right in to the second row and been hugely effective. Nick Morgan, who was a try-scoring wing last season, is learning outside center and scored a try against the Lions. Flanker and vice captain Tanner DeMassa has been a workhorse. Flanker Aston Gradwick-Light and hooker Henry Langrish also scored tries for the Wildcats. Captain and fullback Matteo Berenger converted all three.

Freshman Michael Daly scored the key try for Lindenwood, as that score at the 45th minute put Lindenwood ahead. Scrumhalf Jack McAllister and wing David Cathcart scored tries in the second half. All of those tries were converted by flyhalf Byron Forward, who converted Neil Milczarek’s try in the first half and added two penalty goals for a personal hail of 14 points.

This was a good early test for both teams. Winning, losing, well everyone wants to win, but the value is something more than that.