2025 Women’s D-III New Year’s Tournaments!

As 2024 came to a close this week, many teams are gearing up for the second half of the season with hopes of raising the national title. For some teams, this means an in-season tournament to get ready for the second half and possibly increase their at-large bid chances depending on how they fare in their conference tournaments in March. This weekend, we’ve got a trio of women’s tournaments. For starters, we have The Bagley Invitational (Spartan Arena – Castleton, VT) then the Marian Holiday Classic (Blue Line Family Ice Center – Fond du Lac, WI). And finally, the premier tournament of the year the 13th Annual East/West Classic (Kreitzberg Arena – Northfield, VT). All of these events should offer up some great hockey to begin the 2025.

Let’s dive into them a little more!

The Bagley Invitational (Spartan Arena – Castleton, VT)

The first tournament this weekend is The Bagley Invitational hosted by Castleton (4-5-1).  The invited and competing teams are Keene State (7-4-0), Potsdam (3-3-1) and Colby (5-2-0).  The schedule is the following and all contests are going to be played at Spartan Arena.

Friday – January 3, 2025

Keene State @ Castleton – 4pm ET

Potsdam vs Colby – 7pm ET

Saturday – January 4, 2025

3rd place/Championship – TBD

As for the tournament, the projected winner is Colby, on paper, they should take care of business, but after all this is hockey and there’s a reason we play the games, so anything could happen. 

Just recently, Potsdam defeated their former Head Coach Greg Haney’s ranked-Elmira team in a decisive 2-1 OT victory. A result such as this shows us they could very well get another big win this weekend. Keene State, the first year program is exceeding expectations with a 7-4 record to start. With this start they’ve been garnering some deserved on-campus and community attention to go along with their performance on the ice. It would be crazy, but not shocking if the Owls came out with two signature wins this weekend.  

Marian Holiday Classic (Blue Line Family Ice Center – Fond du Lac, WI)

Up next we have the Marian Holiday Classic, hosted by Marian (4-7-0). The other competitors who’re looking to come away as the winners are UW-Stevens Point (7-5-1), UW-Superior (6-6-2) and St. Scholastica (1-10-0). The games will be played at the Blue Line Family Ice Center as the teams will play under this schedule:

Friday – January 3, 2025

UW-Stevens Point @ Marian – 4pm CT

UW-Superior vs St. Scholastica – 7pm CT

Saturday – January 4, 2025

3rd place game – 1pm CT

Championship game – 4pm CT

Based upon projections, the championship game should have us see the Pointers of UW-Stevens Point facing off against the Yellowjackets of UW-Superior as a non-conference WIAC matchup. However, you cannot count out Marian coming in and defending their home ice with an upset against the Pointers on Friday. Interestingly enough, the Pointers tied #1 UW-River Falls at the time and have shown multiple impressive victories this year, maybe these are the signs that they’ll get a pair of wins this weekend.

Now, as for the UW-Superior vs St. Scholastica game, this isn’t the first time they have faced off against each other. Last time, St. Scholastica came away with a 1-0 victory in OT, currently their lone win of the season. Additionally, Superior has been showing new signs of life under their new Head Coach Bri Simon in her inaugural season. This would be a nice piece of hardware for Coach Simon and her Yellowjackets.

13th Annual East/West Classic (Kreitzberg Arena – Northfield, VT)

Finally, we have the premier tournament of the season: the 13th Annual East/West Classic. This event in the past has been crowned the best tournament of the year on numerous occasions, typically offering us at minimum three ranked teams, usually four, and multiple in the top five!

It features many top teams in D-III as this year fans will see the host of the event Norwich (5-6-0), #7 Plattsburgh (6-2-1), undefeated #2 Amherst (7-0-0) and finally #11 Nazareth (7-2-0). All games will take place at the Kreitzberg Arena under the following event schedule:

Sunday – January 5, 2025

Amherst @ Norwich 3pm ET

Plattsburgh vs Nazareth 6pm ET

Monday – January 6, 2025

3rd place game – 1pm ET

Championship game – 4pm ET

As for the teams playing this year, Norwich is looking like they are in auto-bid or bust category after their tough first-half of the 2024-2025 campaign, so picking up a pair of big wins will help immensely for their hopes at the national tournament if they’re going to be close to the at-large conversation.

Nazareth on the other hand, is showing they’re not out of the UCHC despite all the noise Utica’s been making, the two rivals split earlier this season. As the Golden Flyers, they’re coming off a pair of NESCAC wins over (ranked at the time) Trinity College (6-3-0) and Wesleyan University (2-6-0), outscoring them 5-1 over the two games.

Looking at Amherst this year, they’ve been unbeatable. One reason for this is the stellar play of goaltender Natalie Stott, arguably the best goalie in all D-III. They have four collective team shutouts and have outscored opponents 24-3 in their seven games. They’ve been a title contender ever since Stott’s freshman year and this is no different.

Finally, Plattsburgh is showing that they’re still a top team despite looking a little uncharacteristic at times last season and this year. They have an opportunity to make some noise this weekend. Their only blemishes are in-conference, coming at the hands of Cortland (L) and Oswego (T), also a loss to #1 Middlebury in the Cardinal/Panther Classic (another incredible annual event), so, they’ll be looking to get a massive victory against #2 Amherst so they can stay in the race for the NCAA tournament. 

Fun fact in this one, Nazareth apparently is the “West” team in this event, the east/west classic will stand for East/Western NY for the second straight year as it usually in the past featured a team west of Ohio.

Great set of games this weekend and what a way to kick off the New Year!