ROCK ISLAND, Ill. — Goalkeeper Alliey Cunningham (Sr., Evanston, Ill./Evanston Township) of Division III No. 9-ranked Washington & Jefferson College made 13 saves to claim Player of the Game recognition as the Presidents upset Division III No. 8/Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA) Division III regular season runner-up Macalester College, 9-6, in the semifinals of the 2025 CWPA Division III Championship hosted by Augustana College.
Courtesy the win, W&J (14-6, 6-2 CWPA Division III) advances into the title game at 1:30 p.m. Central on Sunday, April 13, to face the winner of the other semifinal matching the host/Division III No. 10 Vikings of Augustana and Division III No. 6/CWPA Division III regular season champion Austin College. Macalester (11-9, 7-1 CWPA Division III) will face the loser of the Augustana-Austin game at Noon for Third Place.
The title game will mark the seventh time W&J has played for the CWPA Division III crown since the inaugural championship in 2010. A six-time runner-up (2011, 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017), the Presidents will seek to add onto a legacy that includes:
- The 2011 (7-2 L at Macalester College) and 2012 (10-3 L at Grove City College) runner-up to the Wolverines of Grove City, W&J placed fourth at the first Division III Championship in 2010 at Utica University with a 12-7 loss versus former varsity team Wheaton College (Ill.) in the Third Place game.
- In 2013, the Presidents topped Carthage College, 6-5, in the Third Place game.
- In 2014, Connecticut overcame W&J, 7-3, in the title game at Macalester.
- 2015 saw W&J drop a 13-10 title game to Connecticut College at Grove City.
- In 2016, host Connecticut nipped the Presidents for the title, 13-9.
- Host Macalester claimed a 10-9 overtime win in 2017 during the Presidents most recent title game appearance.
Nikola Malezanov, who led the W&J women’s program to the title game in 2016 at Connecticut, has helped the Presidents rise from the bottom of the division standings to the edge of reaching the top as the squad recently finished Fourth (2018, 2024), 10th (2019) and Sixth (2022, 2023) at the CWPA Division III Championship. The team did not compete at the championship in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic
The road to the top, however, ran through 2017, 2018 and 2019 CWPA Division III Champion Macalester which was seeking to reach the title game for the first time since the program’s most recent crown.
The Scots seemed poised to run away with the contest in the opening eight minutes as Hannah Fasi (So., Honolulu, Hawaii/Iolani School) and 2025 CWPA Division III Most Valuable Player Jess Palmer-Sammons (Jr., Half Moon Bay, Calif./Half Moon Bay) fired balls into the cage with 4:35 and 51 seconds remaining in the first quarter to stake Macalester to a 2-0 margin.
W&J erased the lead in short order as Sydney Neumann (Sr., Long Beach, Calif./Millikan) shuttered the first quarter with a strike at the 13 seconds mark and 2025 CWPA Division III Rookie of the Year Emmie Ratcliff (Fr., Friendswood, Texas/Friendswood) commenced the second quarter by burying a shot with 6:15 until halftime to balance the scoreboard at two-all
Elizabeth Matlin (Sr., Buffalo Grove, Ill./Adlai E. Stevenson) (5:38), Ratcliff (5:38), Sian Lewandowski (Sr., North Haven, Conn./Williston Northampton) (5:16) and Emma Halle (Sr., Pittsburgh, Pa./North Allegheny) (3:04, man-up) exchanged scores over the final five and a half minutes of the second quarter as Macalester gained and lost leads of 3-2 and 4-3 to allow the teams to enter halftime deadlocked at four-all.
Washington & Jefferson used the time on the sidelines to revitalize and reconfigure for a second half which saw the team outscore the Scots by a 5-2 count.
Halle started the run by converting a five-meter penalty shot 51 seconds (7:51) into the third quarter to put the Presidents ahead for the first time at 5-4. Neumann followed with an insurance tally at 4:04 prior to Anna Gaisser (Fr., Seattle, Wash./Ingraham) getting one back for Macalester by converting a six-on-five opportunity with 1:21 on the clock to move the Scots back to within a goal at 6-5.
Halle made it 7-5 with 53 seconds left in the third quarter and Matlin returned the spread to a single marker with 5:03 to play in the fourth quarter as neither team could deliver the deciding blow.
For W&J, it was Hallie Ratcliff (So., Friendswood, Texas/Friendswood) and Halle who delivered the executive actions that allowed the Presidents to return to the title game as the duo scored with 4:45 and 3:50 left in regulation, respectively, to pad W&J’s lead to 9-6.
Cunningham made the three goal lead hold up the rest of the way as W&J made history by earning the program’s inaugural berth to the USA Water Polo Collegiate Division III Championship. The event – which is slated to be hosted by the CWPA Division III Champion and was first contested in women’s competition during the 2022 campaign following the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 events due to the COVID-19 outbreak- matches the top two teams from the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) and CWPA Division III Championships, By qualifying for the CWPA Championship game, W&J guarantees the team’s season will continue until the weekend of May 3-4.
For the Presidents, Halle (four goals-one assist), Emmie Ratcliff (two goals-one assist), Neumann (two goals), Hallie Ratcliff (one goal) and Anastacia Didovich (three assists) combined for W&J’s offense in support of Cunningham.
Macalester, which previously placed first (2017, 2018, 2019), third (2023, 2024), fourth (2011, 2013, 2014, 2022), fifth (2012, 2015), sixth (2010) and seventh (2016) at the CWPA Division III Championship with nine prior semifinal appearances, received offensive output from Matlin (two goals), Palmer-Sammons (one goal-two assists), Gaisser (one goal), Lewandowski (one goal), Fasi (one goal) and Kendall Strauss (Jr., Round Rock, Texas/Round Rock). Jayden Kratt (Jr., Palo Alto, Calif./Henry M. Gunn) made five saves in taking the loss.
| 1st Q | 2nd Q | 3rd Q | 4th Q | – | FINAL | |
| Division III No. 9 Washington & Jefferson College (14-6, 6-2 CWPA Division III) | 1 | 3 | 3 | 2 | – | 9 |
| Division III No. 8 Macalester College (11-9, 7-1 CWPA Division III) | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | – | 6 |
| Macalester Goals: | Elizabeth Matlin (2); Sian Lewandowski; Jess Palmer-Sammons; Anna Gaisser; Hannah Fasi | |||||
| W&J Goals: | Emma Halle (4); Emmie Ratcliff (2); Sydney Neumann (2); Hallie Ratcliff | |||||
| Saves: | Macalester – Jayden Kratt (5) ; W&J – Alliey Cunningham (13) | |||||
| Exclusions: | Macalester – 7 ; W&J – 7 | |||||
| Advantage Opportunities: | Macalester – 1-for-7 ; W&J – 2-for-7 | |||||
| Cards/Misconducts: | YC – W&J (Nikola Malezanov, 3:46 left in 2nd Q) | |||||
| Officials: | Andy Mattson; Tiffany Ruiz-Urbanski | |||||
Macalester College’s Jess Palmer-Sammons (#12) attempts to get around a Washington & Jefferson College defender
Macalester College’s Jayden Kratt (#1)
Washington & Jefferson College’s Autumn Woollcott (#18) & Macalester College’s Elizabeth Matlin (#6)
