> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Seawolves Look to Keep Season Alive in Utah - URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/seawolves-look-to-keep-season-alive-in-utah/ - Published: 2025-05-12T18:42:20.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-08T06:20:21.000Z - Author: Callaghan Bluechel - Tags: Seawolves, Nick Boyer, Riekert Hattingh, Rhyno Herbst, OJ Noa, Rodney Iona \[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="3298"\] ![ Two Seawolves team up to tackle RFCLA eightman Ben Houston during a game on May 2, 2025. The match ended in a draw, and now Seattle is looking to win against the Utah Warriors. Credit: Punkus Arnett/Seattle Seawolves. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1d/f2/1df2f77b-83dd-4bc0-a6d2-6d1bb5df89a3/content/images/2026/10/image001--282-29-format-original.jpg) Two Seawolves team up to tackle RFCLA eightman Ben Houston during a game on May 2, 2025\. The match ended in a draw, and now Seattle is looking to win against the Utah Warriors. Credit: Punkus Arnett/Seattle Seawolves. \[/caption\] Second place and last place in the Western Conference are clashing today – and the last-place Seattle Seawolves have an uphill battle. A loss would all but end Seattle’s playoff hopes - barring a complete RFC Los Angeles collapse - going into the last four weeks of the regular season, while a win would keep the pack on the outer edge of the hunt, though reliant on an RFCLA slip-up. But a win against the 2025 Utah Warriors is no small feat. Only three times has a team managed that – the Western Conference-leading Houston SaberCats on March 8, the Eastern Conference-leading New England Free Jacks on March 29, and Old Glory DC on May 4\. Utah has come out on top in their other eight contests, including a 30-27 victory over the Seawolves on March 22 at Starfire. Having lost to the Warriors at home, the Seawolves must now attempt to best them on the road. The last time the two faced off on Utah’s turf, it was a 23-13 win for Seattle – but it is a new year for both sides. While the Seawolves have uncharacteristically struggled all year, the Utah Warriors have gone from a 5-11-0 second-to-last place team in 2024 to a championship contender this year. The Warriors brought on many new faces for the 2025 season, and it has so far paid off for the Utah side. The front row is now led by 6-1, 240-pound hooker Liam Coltman, a Super Rugby veteran who played nine years for the Highlanders and has seven tries and 115 tackles over nine games (eight starts). Aki Seiuli, a 6-0, 260-pound internationally capped Samoan loosehead prop, has 95 tackles in 515 minutes over 10 starts in his first MLR season. Utah inside center D’Angelo Leuila, a three-year Moana Pasifika player with Rugby World Cup caps for Samoa, has excelled in his first MLR season – his 78 points (one try, 29 conversions, and five penalty goals) is top in the league among all players. The team’s other big backfield offseason addition was fullback Jordan Trainor, who is the league’s leading meter eater with 757 meters made. Trainor also has 7.2 meters/carry, four tries, and eight try assists in 752 minutes over 10 matches. Even though the new players have brought the Warriors towards the top of the table, the returners have also balled out in 2025\. Frank Lochore, a 6-4, 240-pound lock and flanker, leads MLR in tackles with 195 (this after his 221 tackles in his 2024 rookie season were second in the competition). Flyhalf Joel Hodgson, in his third year with Utah, is an excellent game manager and is 11th in MLR in points with 42 – this even with Leuila getting most of the kicking duties. Wing Joey Mano, in his fifth year on the team, leads MLR in tries with eleven and clean breaks with twenty. Nic Benn, a fellow wing in his third year and third team in MLR, is no slouch either, with six tries and ten clean breaks over 740 minutes in ten appearances. Utah’s starting front row will consist of Seiuli at loosehead and Coltman at hooker, while Tonga Kofe, a 6-2, 310-pound Portland State alum, will be the tighthead. The locks will be Reid Davis, a 6-4, 240-pound former Seawolf, and Matt Jensen, a 6-7, 270-pound longtime Warrior with 119 tackles on the season. Lochore will be the blindside flanker, while his counterpart on the openside will be 6-2, 245-pound American Kalisi Moli, who currently has 95 tackles in 537 minutes over nine appearances. Rounding out the forward pack will be 6-2, 230-pound eightman Lance Williams, a longtime Utah Warrior who racked up 3030 meters, 18 tries, and 790 tackles between 2018 and 2023 before joining the USA Eagles Sevens program in 2024 and then returning to Utah in April of this year. The Utah starting pack weighs 2,035 pounds (923 kilograms). Scrumhalf Zion Going will get the start at number nine, while Hodgson will be the flyhalf and Leuila will get the nod at inside center. Outside center will be Cole Semu, a rookie who is getting his sixth MLR cap. The starting wings will be Mano on the left and Benn on the right, and Trainor will be fullback and captain for tonight’s match. Utah is adopting a usual 5-3 split in the substitutes. Wearing #16 is hooker Tu Vugakoto, a sixth-year Warrior who has matched his season-best in tries with three despite tonight being only his eighth 2025 cap. The #17 and #18 are props Emerson Prior and Angus MacLellan, the latter of whom is Utah’s only centurion (tonight will be his 102nd MLR cap, all with Utah). The remaining forward substitutes are #19 Phil Bradford and #20 Tyler Wong, both utility forwards. Logan Crowley, a scrumhalf, will be wearing #21, while #22 will be center Paul Lasike (who will be getting his 40th cap). Rounding out the available roster is wing Nolan Tuamoheloa at #23. Absent from Utah’s matchday 23 is Dylan Nel, a 6-1, 245-pound South African flanker and eightman, who has racked up 160 tackles, currently third in MLR. The Seawolves, for their part, have introduced a bit of rotation – though some of it is due to injury. The most notable shift is that both the starting and reserve scrumhalves for Seattle are getting their first appearances of 2025 due to the injuries sustained by JP Smith and Brock Gallagher in last week’s match. The front row is filled with familiar faces, however – the props are 6-0, 265-pound Australian loosehead Cam Orr and 6-0, 278-pound Argentine tighthead Juan Pablo Zeiss. Dewald Kotze, a 6-1, 229-pound Canadian-eligible South African, will be the starting hooker for the third time in 2025\. The locks will be a pair of South Africans – 6-6, 258-pound Malembe Mpofu and 6-5, 249-pound Rhyno Herbst. Riekert Hattingh, the 6-5, 234-pound usual eightman, will instead get the start at blindside flanker, while Charles Elton, a Kiwi who stands at 6-3 and 234 pounds will be his counterpart on the openside. OJ Noa, a 6-4, 243-pound Kiwi-Samoan with experience in both the second and third rows, will be the eightman. Seattle’s pack, which weighs in at 1990 pounds (or 903 kilograms), has several standouts. Charles Elton, the openside flanker, leads the team with 114 tackles – a feat made more impressive considering his first appearance was in game six of the season. Elton’s 19.4 tackles per 80 minutes is better than Lochore’s 19.0 and Nel’s 18.7\. Herbst has been a key figure in the middle of the pack, starting every game for Seattle and racking up 106 tackles as well as several lineout steals. The move of Hattingh from eightman to flanker is an interesting one. Hattingh has excelled for much of the season – with five tries and 96 tackles – but has seemed exhausted after Seattle’s recent stretch of short turnaround after short turnaround, coming off early in both of the last two games. In each of those matches, Noa subsequently moved from his position elsewhere in the pack to the eightman spot, and he will get the start at that position today. The notable new addition to the starting backfield is scrumhalf Nick Boyer, who signed to the team two days ago to fill the spot left by the recent injuries to JP Smith and Brock Gallagher. Boyer has been both a sub and a starter over his seven-year, 75-cap career. The flyhalf will be Rodney Iona, who struggled to start the year on his new team but has since filled the role well – though more so in field management and coordination rather than in tee work, where has improved but still sometimes drops points. Dan Kriel, a longtime Seawolf who has picked up right where he left off in 2025, is the inside center. The outside backs are as they have been for the last couple matches. Divan Rossouw, the team-leader in tries (7) and meters (738) who played a fair amount at fullback earlier in the year, is again the outside center, while the fullback is Duncan Matthews. The wings will be Toni Pulu on the left and Ina Futi on the right. These four have shown a significant amount of promising coordination in the last few matches, especially against the Chicago Hounds on April 18\. The eight substitutes are five forwards and three backs, the usual split for the Seawolves. The #16 will be hooker Jesse Mackail, who is getting his second appearance of the season – his first being a two-try second half performance against the San Diego Legion in the first match of 2025\. The bench props will be #17 Dewald Donald, getting his third appearance of the year, and #18 Mason Pedersen, who is notching his tenth cap of the year and 75th in MLR. Wearing #19 will be lock CC Mahoni, while flanker Devin Short will don #20\. The three backfield substitutes will be two familiar 2025 offseason additions and one second-year Seawolf who is getting his first cap of the year. Halfback Rhys Jones, who notched an appearance last year but none so far this year, will be the backup scrumhalf, wearing #21\. The #22 will be flyhalf Eddie Fouché, while outside back Malacchi Esdale – a six-try scorer in just 317 minutes – will wear #23. Beating Utah on the road will be one of the toughest challenges yet for the 2025 Seawolves. The team is 1-5-0 on the road (as opposed to 3-1-1 at home), and the Warriors are one of the best teams in MLR. The keys on offense will be to keep confident coordination on the passes and to stay away from overly risky offloads that end up being knock-ons or opponent breakaways. The Seawolves have been using a better strategy since the Hounds game, but the team’s propensity for losing the ball during promising stretches of play has caused the results to vary. On defense, Seattle will have to rebuild the Seawall and keep Utah’s heavy forward pack in check. Last week against RFCLA, the Seawall tired out quickly in the face of opponent ruck crashes and started ceding heavy meterage to their opponent – maintaining form will be key against the stronger Utah side. The match starts at 6 PM Pacific time today and is available for viewing on ESPN+ or Fox 13+.