ROTC team poses with their national championship trophy.

Winning two national championships in three years is something most professional sports franchises can only dream of. Most recently, the Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 2023 and 2024. However, a certain WashU team recently achieved such success, with not only two championships in three years, but two in their very first three years participating in the competition.

Over the weekend of Feb. 21–23, WashU’s Army ROTC basketball team traveled to South Bend, Indiana to participate for their third time in the Flyin’ Irish Invitational Tournament at the University of Notre Dame. The Bears won the entire tournament, establishing for themselves an impressive winning legacy in a short timespan.

The 39-year-old annual competition features over 30 ROTC teams from schools across the country, with the majority being larger Division I universities. WashU, with a ROTC group of around 100 students, faced colleges such as Virginia Tech and Texas A&M, that have thousands of ROTC cadets, large tryouts, and much more organized funding.

However, despite being a smaller group, the WashU team carried a target on their back, having won in their first appearance at the tournament two years ago. They welcomed the challenge of being an underdog, even choosing to wear the same football jerseys from their first year instead of official printed jerseys. 

“That’s a good debate because we were known for that our first year being with the football jerseys,” senior and captain Caden Perry said. “And we kind of like that humble attitude. So we decided to keep up with it and just crush the teams with the nice uniforms.”

“It definitely felt nice to be a Division III school going in a largely predominantly Division I school competition and coming out on a winning end,” senior Andrew Rudolph said.

The team played three pool games and four games in elimination play to become national champions. Across pool play, the team went 2-1, beating one of St. Louis University’s ROTC teams and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln squad, but losing to one of the hosts, the University of Notre Dame Army Team.

Seeded as the No. 10 team going into the knockouts, the Bears ROTC team defeated the cadets from the University of Kentucky 58-40 in the first round. They then went on to beat the team from the University of Nebraska–Omaha 53-40. In the semifinals, they faced another one of the host teams in the form of the University of Notre Dame Navy, beating the Fighting Irish 37-26.

In the final, the Bears came out strong on an 11-0 run to go on to defeat the Virginia Tech ROTC team in another low-scoring, tightly-contested affair 36-27. The keys to their success across the tournament, Perry said, were a strong transition game, taking easy lay-ups, and defensive effort.

Bringing home another trophy was a major accomplishment and highlight of their college careers.

“This is my parents’ first time coming,” junior and co-captain Anthony Kuceba said. “My mom was crying on the sideline just because she knows how much they mean to me. All four of them, [Schneider] McGinness, [Ethan] Han, Caden, Andrew have all been huge mentors for me. So just kind of seeing their success was very important to my family.”

Now, with a winning pedigree and a greater understanding of how the event works, the team has established a more organized workflow and look to continue their success in future events. They have dedicated tryouts, and the entire logistics for the competition is coordinated by the team captains.

“Caden and Anthony here were our co-coaches for the tournament, and they did a great job of getting us prepared, whether it was signing waivers or making sure that we had all the information pertaining to the tournament down ahead of time,” Rudolph said. “That really allowed us to work on our chemistry with those practices leading up to the tournament.”

With greater experience, the team now features a variety of players, including 37-year-old Purple Heart recipient Rasheem Watson and the team’s first female athlete, senior Sophie Hoffman.

Looking ahead to a fourth year of competition, the WashU ROTC team seeks to sustain their incredible winning percentage and enjoy the bonds the event fosters. Kuceba, who will look to head the program next year, hopes that the event will continue to attract more people and be a source of greater community.

“As much as winning is such a satisfying feeling, that’s not what I’ll remember when I look back at these past two years,” he said. “It’s just the bonds that I made with the upperclassmen and now the underclassmen, now that I’m an old guy on the team. How a transformative experience it was for me freshman year, just getting out of that freshman rut, and being able to learn from older cadets. I think that’s probably the best part.”