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Crusaders Honours and Updates: 2025 in Review

ByChris Tudor Price
Collage of Crusaders players Brenden Black, Taylor Perry and Jack Shaw with the title 2025 Honours and Updates

What a year it has been for Crusaders on and off the Cru Park pitch! As the university season wraps up, here’s a round-up of the honours our current and former players picked up in 2025, and where some of them are heading next.

Major awards

  • Marcus D’Acre (Queen’s): OUA Men’s Rugby Player of the Year, national Player of the Year at the Canadian University Men’s Rugby Championship, and a First Team All-Canadian. That means both of this year’s top university awards, Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year, went to Crusaders!
  • Lizzie Gibson (Queen’s): OUA Women’s Rugby Player of the Year and U SPORTS First Team All-Canadian. It’s Lizzie’s second OUA Player of the Year award, after 2022, and she is already the Gaels’ all-time leading scorer.
  • Jack Gore (Laurier): OUA Men’s Rugby Rookie of the Year, and then national Rookie of the Year at the Canadian University Men’s Rugby Championship. Not bad for a first-year!
  • Jakob Schulz (Guelph): OUA Community Service Award, the first ever for a Guelph men’s rugby player, recognising his work as a Big Brother and the winter clothing drive he led for Hope House Guelph.
  • Koen Schroeder (Brock): Rugby Ontario Senior Provincial Player of the Year.

OUA All-Stars

First Team

  • Marcus D’Acre (Queen’s), fly-half
  • Lizzie Gibson (Queen’s), back row
  • Kohl Kletke (Western), back three
  • Tao Nichol (Queen’s), back row
  • Connor Hay (Queen’s), second row
  • Koen Schroeder (Brock), back three

Second Team

  • Brenden Black (Guelph), back three
  • Julia Kata (McMaster), hooker

National champions

The Guelph Gryphons won their fifth straight OUA title and then the first national championship in the program’s history, and were named OUA Men’s Team of the Year. Eight Crusaders were part of that squad:

  • Brenden Black
  • Liam Bowman
  • Quinn Foley
  • Jacob Ince
  • Jakob Schulz
  • Oliver Alpe
  • Daniel Lucic
  • Tomas Dallan

That’s one in six of a national championship roster coming through Cru Park. Congratulations, boys!

Wearing the maple leaf

  • Brenden Black earned his first cap for Canada in July, starting at fullback against Belgium in Edmonton.
  • Jack Shaw earned his first cap in September, starting on the wing against Tonga in the Pacific Nations Cup.
  • Taylor Perry was part of Canada’s squad at the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup in England, where Canada reached the final.
  • Quinn Foley, Kohl Kletke and Daniel Lucic represented Canada’s U20s at the Oceania Rugby U20s Challenge in Fiji.
  • Geart De Marez Oyens was selected for Canada’s U18 summer development camp.
  • Adam Yhip represented Guyana in the Rugby Americas North 15s championship, playing in the pack against the Cayman Islands in April and Barbados in May, a year after helping Guyana edge Trinidad and Tobago 24–23 in Port of Spain.

Starting university rugby

Tessa Jackson has started her university career at Western, playing fly-half for the Mustangs while studying kinesiology. Tessa first picked up a rugby ball in no-contact flag rugby at the age of eight, and she’s following in family footsteps: both her parents played rugby at Western. Good luck, Tessa!

Proud club

Every one of these players has worn the black and gold, coached and supported by volunteers who give up their evenings and weekends. Their success belongs to the whole club. Thank you to every coach, manager, parent and volunteer who helped them along the way.

Know of a Crusader we’ve missed? Let us know and we’ll add them to the list.

Up the Cru!

Featured image: photos of Brenden Black, Taylor Perry and Jack Shaw courtesy of Rugby Canada, used with permission.