The Year of Dark Horses? Our CRC 7s Women Preview

04.23.2026College Women

Brown seeks the four-peat. Photo NCR.

Author: Alex Goff

The CRC Women's 7s is set for this weekend and the four brackets of 16 teams provide tough competition for 64 teams across the divisions.

D3

What used to be the small-college teams are now D3 and generally what happens in this bracket is that teams successful in 15s also do well in 7s. That's not always true in every division but it is true here.

Baldwin-Wallace and Endicott are the #1 seeds and that's probably the right pick. B-W is coming off a sweep of the teams in the Powerful Women tournament they hosted.

Endicott, winners in 2023 and 2025, played in tournaments with higher-division opponents such as Coast Guard and Roger Williams and that experience set them up nicely for a run through their qualifier.

Aside from them, the teams that might break through include Colorado School of Mines, a #3 seed, and a Wayne State team that pretty much torched everyone they played.

D2

Coastal Carolina and the aforementioned Roger Williams are the #1 seeds but UW Eau-Claire has to be in the mix as should be Coast Guard Academy—not coincidentally the last two winners in this bracket.

The real dark horse? Maybe UNH or Colorado Mesa. Roger Williams did the D3 and then D2 in 2022-2023.

D1AA

This is really a new divisional designation this year for NCR in the women's arena. The D1 league in 15s included just seven teams, but they were a different type of team compared with these club teams.

Northeastern as a #1 seed is really an excellent favorite. JMU, like Northeastern, is a #1 seed and both have won major 7s championships in their history. This includes Northeastern last year. The Huskies could easily win again this year,

Dark horse? Well Utah State is a #8 playing a #1, but you never know!

Premier

Brown has won this three years in a row and, really, they have made their point.

This bracket is dominated by teams in daily training or frequent training environments. It hasn't been a cakewalk for Brown, but they really have been well-positioned to win this.

Having said that, there are eight NIRA programs (covering three divisional levels) plus school-supported (in varying degrees) teams such as St. Bonaventure, Wheeling, Walsh, Aquinas, and Southern Nazarene. Kudos to Northern Iowa, Marist, and UConn for playing in this group.

Brown might not win it all this year. They have an excellent shot, but AIC, Southern Nazarene, and Wheeling might well chase down the Ivy-leaguers.

The semis will be very tough here.