St. Bonaventure Over SNU on a Wintry Sunday

11.16.2025College Men

Bonnies can celebrate now but they've got another job next week.

St. Bonaventure defeated Southern Nazarene Sunday in driving snow and sleet to take the final play-in of the NCR D1 postseason and make it a 4-for-4 weekend for teams from the Atlantic Rugby Conference.

With the victory, Bonnies joins fellow ARC teams Queens (bye to the quarterfinals for winning the conference final), Walsh, Belmont Abbey, and Wheeling University, who all won play-ins this weekend.

It was very unpleasant weather on Sunday with a brisk and cold wind blowing off the nearby Allegheny River. Playing with the wind at their backs, Bonnies took full advantage and spent most of the first half in Southern Nazarene territory.

They opened the scoring off a scrum move, with fullback Koen Webb linking with No. 8 Daniel Lowther to charge into scoring position. SNU was quick on the ball and stole it from Lowther only to see the big No. 8 rip the ball away again and charge over the line.

Mistakes from SNU helped St. Bonaventure along. A rather speculative pass, especially considering the wind, inside the Crimson Storm’s 22 saw the ball hit the deck. Wing Troy Heroldt swooped in to gather and score SBU’s second. Noah Edwards was good on the conversion for a 12-0 lead. After a little altercation between teams—words were spoken throughout the match—Bonnies scored again. They spun it wide right to wing Dara Falope, and then back left again where flanker Nikulas Otineru was there to trundle over.

That made it 17-0 and Edwards would add a long-range, wind-aided penalty goal to nudge the score to 20-0.

Another SNU mistake led to the next try, with the Crimsom Storm players unable to catch a high ball from Edwards and seeing instead Falope grab the bouncing ball and race into the corner.

Edwards hit the conversion from the touchline for a 27-0 lead. A long maul leading to hooker Reynard Boshoff popping off the back and scoring finished the first half. Edwards converted again from out wide, having figured out that floating the kick in front of the posts and letting the wind take it though would work, and St. Bonaventure led 34-0 at halftime.

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Second Half Brings Hope for SNU

But both teams knew that the wind would favor Southern Nazarene in the second half.

So St. Bonaventure appeared fully prepared to defend for a long time, and make it difficult for SNU. This they did for a while before it was St. Bonaventure’s turn to send a speculative pass in their end. Once again the ball was loose, outside center Ian Evans sped in to get it, took off for the corner, and as he was tackled lofted a perfect offload to his midfield partner Connor Malau’ulu for the first Crimson Storm try.

The weather didn’t seem to do SNU any favors as the elements eased off for a bit. St Bonaventure used that time to march into SNU territory, and Edwards skated left and beat several tacklers to score a try of his own. But when the wind came back, SBU was burned by a clearance kick being held up long enough for scrumhalf Hlanga Mabele to get under it, and take the ball about 35 meters to the corner.

But the hill was really too far to climb for Southern Nazarene. It was 39-10, and when St. Bonaventure took a lineout from a penalty and put Heroldt (now playing scrumhalf) through on a snipe, hope drifted away on the cold, cold wind.

SNU ended the game on a length-of-the field movement that ended with a penalty try when St. Bonaventure didn’t retreat 10 meters twice in a row, but that was scant consolation.

Really, SNU battled hard in difficult conditions against one of the top three teams in NCR’s D1. Playing an independent schedule, Southern Nazarene played exactly two NCR D1 teams before this play-in match. Their others games were against D1A 2nd sides (two of those), three D1AA teams, a D2 team, and two matches that were canceled, leaving the Crimson Storm with no games for from October 5 through October 24.

With that in mind, they did well against a team that had a game every week, with seven games against NCR D1 opponents, and three more non-conference matches against D1A sides.

Next up for St. Bonaventure is mighty Brown, ranked #1 in NCR D1 by GRR and the defending NCR D1 champions.

That rounds out the NCR D1 quarterfinals:
St. Bonaventure vs Brown
Walsh vs Marian
Belmont Abbey vs Notre Dame
Wheeling vs Queens