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  Dustin Poirier will compete in his farewell fight against old rival Max Holloway for the BMF Title. Watch UFC 318 on Saturday, July 19 with prelim coverage beginning 8 p.m. ET / 5 p.m. PT, and pay-per-view main card starting at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT.

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UFC Hall of Famer Michael Bisping understands what Dustin Poirier is feeling heading into UFC 318.

Dustin Poirier will walk to the Octagon for one last time this Saturday at UFC 318 against soon to be three-time rival Max Holloway. Poirier will get the chance to not only finish his career with another UFC belt, but to do it just hours from his hometown.

As the hours tick down before Poirier’s last hurrah, a UFC Hall of Famer believes there’s a lot of added pressure on the Lafayette native to perform than at any other time in his career.

Michael Bisping details pressure Dustin Poirier is under in UFC 318 farewell

Poirier has fought many UFC legends during his career, particularly in recent years. Seven of Poirier’s last ten fights have come against former UFC titleholders, and he isn’t a stranger to big moments under immense spotlights.

But Poirier will likely experience a spotlight he hasn’t had to deal with in his combat sports career as he prepares to face Holloway for the third time at UFC 318.

During a recent preview on his YouTube channel, Michael Bisping provided insight into the pressure Poirier might be feeling heading into UFC 318.

“When he retires, at only 36 years old, there’s going to be a lot of things that Dustin Poirier can do. So is the motivation still there? Of course. It’s in New Orleans, the UFC is going there specifically for Dustin Poirier, and that’s incredible. And that could be the fairy tale farewell tour, but it brings a lot of pressure, anxiety,” Bisping said of Poirier.

“You’ve got friends and family in town, they all want to see you perform. You’re the local hero. And it brings a lot of pressure! I’ve been there many times, every time I fought in England, it was a little bit more stressful.

“But I was also undefeated in England as well, you do want to do the people justice, make them proud, and it pushes you in training camp.”

Poirier has fought in Louisiana just one prior time in his UFC career, when he knocked out Yancy Medeiros with a body kick in June 2015. It was the most-recent time that the UFC has hosted an event in Louisiana entering UFC 318.

UFC CEO Dana White has repeatedly explained that the promotion booked its return to New Orleans specifically at Poirier’s request. This will also be the second time that Poirier has fought for the BMF belt in his career. (UFC 291 vs. Justin Gaethje)

Dustin Poirier’s daughter wrote an adorable tribute ahead of UFC 318

Ahead of his last hurrah at UFC 318, Poirier’s eight-year-old daughter, Parker, wrote a touching tribute that has made the rounds online. During the UFC 318 Countdown episode, Parker wished her father the best at UFC 318 while adorably expressing relief in him walking away from fighting.

Poirier is expected to transition into a UFC analyst role once he hangs up the gloves after UFC 318. But he could also potentially pursue other combat sports competitions, including boxing and grappling.

One of the UFC’s most beloved stars will look to treat fans to one last signature moment at UFC 318.

Springfield, Mass. – July 14, 2025 – Six Springfield College student-athletes were named to the 2025 College Sports Communicators (CSC) Academic All-District Team this year.

The 2025 Academic All-District® At-Large Teams, selected by College Sports Communicators, recognize the nation’s top student-athletes for their combined performances in their sport and in the classroom. The CSC Academic All-America® program separately recognizes honorees in four divisions — NCAA Division I, NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and NAIA. In order to be eligible, a student-athlete must have a grade point average of 3.50 or higher and compete in a specified number of team matches over the course of the calendar year.

Men’s volleyball junior Dylan Mulvaney (Reston, Va.) and men’s lacrosse senior Vincent Scialdone (Yorktown Heights, N.Y.) were repeat selections to the Academic All-District Team, while men’s gymnastics senior Owen Carney (Sterling, Mass.), men’s lacrosse graduate student Jackson Lane (Shrewsbury, Mass.), men’s volleyball junior Jake DesLauriers (Eastport, N.Y.) and men’s volleyball sophomore Carter Durivage (East Greenbush, N.Y.) were all first time honorees.

Mulvaney, an exercise science major with a 3.71 grade point average, ranked second in the nation with 10.37 assists per set dishing out a total of 861 helpers and powered Springfield College to the second-best hitting percentage in the country at a .354 clip. The junior setter also registered 30 kills, 26 aces, 99 digs, 36 blocks and hit .418. IN addition to his third straight All-America award, Mulvaney was tabbed as the FrogJump Volleyball Division III National Setter of the Year.

Scialdone, a criminal justice major with a 3.95 grade point average, in his senior season as Springfield’s face-off midfielder, won 53.1-percent of the face-offs he took (170-for-320) and scooped up a team-high 66 ground balls earning him a spot on the NEWMAC All-Conference Second Team.

Carney, a business management and finance major with a 3.85 grade point average, wrapped up his junior campaign in the finals of the horizontal bar competition at the 2025 NCAA National Collegiate Championships. Competing in the national finals for the third straight season, registered a score of 13.000 on the high bar finishing 26th among the nation’s best. 

Lane, an athletic leadership major with a 3.91 grade point average, the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference (NEWMAC) Defensive Player of the Year in 2025, finished an outstanding collegiate career at Springfield this spring. This season alone, Lane registered 51 ground balls and caused 14 turnovers as not only the best defensive player in the conference, but in the region as well. Lane’s career stretched six seasons on Alden Street with him recording 247 ground balls and causing 61 turnovers. He also added 11 goals and nine assists for 20 points to his career stat line.

DesLauriers, a finance major with a 3.97 grade point average, made his transition from the baseball diamond to the volleyball court this season and made an immediate impact. The junior outside registered 204 kills (2.46 per set) and hit .359, which ranked 30th in Division III this year. DesLauriers also posted 40 aces and 116 digs (1.40 per set).

Durivage, a business management major with a 3.71 grade point average, powered Springfield’s offense with a team-best 221 kills (3.16 per set) and his .369 on the season. The junior outside also totaled 27 blocks and 81 digs. Durivage’s .369 hitting percentage ranked 25th nationally, while his 3.80 points per set ranked 64th in Division III this season.

For the latest on Springfield College Athletics, follow the Pride on social media on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  Be sure to tune into all Springfield College Athletic events by subscribing to FloSports.
 

Since our last ocean rowing roundup, the World’s Toughest Row has crowned its winner, one crew has started an Arctic row, and everyone else is still battling across the world’s oceans. 

Pacific Ocean

World’s Toughest Row: This year, four teams entered the World’s Toughest Row, a 4,500km race across the mid-Pacific from Monterey, California, to Hanalei Bay, Hawaii. Teams set off on June 6, and two crews have crossed the finish line so far. After tricky conditions at the start of the race, and the expected issues with seasickness and fatigue, the four crews have settled into their rows. 

After the first 10 days, the crews began to move quickly west, thanks to helpful waves and wind. 

Four-person crew Swiss Raw aimed to set a new speed record. They succeeded. Jun Hurni, Samuel Widmer, Ingvar Groza, and Yassin Boussena completed the row in 25 days, 2 hours, and 21 minutes, shattering the previous record by four-and-a-half days. “We were told to push hard out of Monterey, and we just didn’t stop,” Boussena said.

The next crew, Ocean5, came in seven days behind the winning team. Thomas Higham, Kevin Gaskell, Matt Gaskell, Stephen Greenan, and Patrick Deacon crossed the finish line after 32 days, 6 hours, and 51 minutes. They are the fastest five ever to complete the race, beating the previous record by almost 20 days. 

The two remaining crews are drawing close to Hawaii and expect to land in the next few days. 

Peru to Australia team making good progress

Seas the Day (UK): Jess Rowe and Miriam Payne are rowing from Peru to Australia. They first set off in April but had to abandon their attempt after 480km when their rudder broke.

In May, they restarted and have now covered 5,900km of the mammoth 14,000km journey. Originally, they were aiming for Sydney, but it is so busy during the months that they would likely finish that they have changed course for Brisbane. 

A big milestone for the duo came on June 19, when they officially completed the first quarter of their journey. Now they are just weeks away from the halfway point, and are hoping to cross the imaginary line on July 25.

They have been incredibly upbeat since their first day, but even for the chirpiest of duos, months at sea can become monotonous. Nearing the halfway point has given them a huge boost. In the last few days, the weather had been on their stern, giving them some of their fastest days yet. Recently, they have clocked between 105km and 125km each day. 

However, power remains an issue. Since the start of their row, their batteries have been playing up. Now, their electrical system has almost completely failed. The batteries drain every night, and they are unable to figure out what is causing the leak. They use all the power remaining solely for the autohelm. They have switched everything else off.

Self-imposed silence

MacLean Brothers (UK): Ewan, Jamie, and Lachlan McLean are also rowing from Peru to Australia. Three months after setting off, they had covered over half of the 14,000km.

They are hoping to set a new speed record, but unfavorable conditions are making that unlikely. In the last few weeks of June, they reported a “messy sea state with no regularity.” Ocean swells combined with wind-driven waves. At one point, the squall was so strong they said it was like being “tossed around like a rubber duck in a wave pool.” Constantly soaked, they ruefully remarked that they “yearn for the Edinburgh drizzle.”

Conditions improved as they moved through to the end of June and the beginning of July. Deciding it felt a bit too easy, they decided to row in silence for three days. They did not speak to each other, turned off their Starlink, and went radio silent on all comms. Before starting, they made a plan for their silent days and came up with a few signals they could use for essential communication.

“Time moves differently when you’re completely silent,” they wrote.

More speed record hopefuls

Tame the Kraken (US): Tim and Harrison Crockett are a father-and-son team taking on the Pacific. Their route is similar to the World’s Toughest Row, starting in California and rowing to Hawaii. 

They are also hoping for a speed record, aiming to complete the row in 45 days. This is becoming less and less likely because of a difficult start, when they struggled with exhaustion and a broken autohelm. 

Tim and Harrison Crockett. Photo: Tame The Kraken

It is hurricane season over the Pacific. Bizarrely, this is helpful (as long as you don’t get caught in one) because it creates quite reliable trade winds that can push you along. However, the downside is that for the first three weeks of June, they were almost always in full foul-weather gear. Cloud cover was near constant, alongside heavy rain and choppy seas. 

As it stands, they have been rowing for over 10 weeks and have 1,100km to go. To finish the row within 45 days, they need to cover 125km per day, approximately double their average pace. 

Around the world with human power

Louis Margot (CH): Louis Margot is making his way around the world by rowing and cycling. He started by cycling from his home country of Switzerland to Portugal. Then he hopped into his boat and rowed to Columbia in 115 days. From there, he once again began pedaling, this time to Peru.

Now he is on his second rowing section, from Peru to Indonesia. After rowing to Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands, he stopped for a few months to rest, make repairs, and restock. He has been back on the water for just over a month and is chipping away at the 11,638km to Indonesia. So far, he has rowed approximately 2,300km.  

Indian Ocean

Ocean Revival (UK): Matthew Mason, Jake Mattock, Matthew Inglesby, and Mathew Hemmings are rowing 8,500km from Australia to Kenya. Originally, they were rowing to Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, but have decided to change course slightly and are now heading towards Kilifi, slightly north of the city of Mombasa. Mid-row, they discovered that the port in Dar es Salaam has no slipways, which would make getting the boat out of the water incredibly tricky. 

Showing how close-knit the ocean rowing community can be, the team got in touch with the Seas the Day crew. Jess Rowe was quick to respond with some helpful information; her father lives in Kenya and knows the coastline well. A few phone calls later, and the boatyard in Kilifi is getting ready for their arrival. 

After two months, they have covered 6,800km. In the last few weeks, conditions have been changeable. They had 24 hours on the para-anchor as a big weather system crossed their path. They almost capsized, and then panicked as a large ship passed too close for comfort. To try and conserve power, they have been switching their navigation on and off. While it was off, a ship suddenly appeared. At first, they thought it was a wave, but within 20 minutes, it was a few kilometers from them.

“Somewhere between survival and bliss, we’ve found a strange kind of peace out here,” the crew wrote recently. “As a crew, we’ve laughed hard, rowed harder, and been broken and rebuilt more times than we can count.”

The world’s blue highway

Untamed (BG, NL, CN, UA): A second four-person crew is also trundling across the Indian Ocean from Australia to Kenya. Almost eight weeks into their row, Evgeny Sudyr, Liu Yong, Ralph Tuijn, and Stefan Ivanov have covered 7,100km of the 9,000km. 

The Untamed crew, out on the ocean. Photo: Untamed

An ambitious crew with a wealth of ocean-rowing knowledge, they had hoped to make the crossing in 75 days. Despite their best efforts, they won’t achieve this. Even for experienced rowers, the Indian Ocean is difficult. It is why so few ocean rowers tackle it.

The team has given few updates but noted the difficulties of rowing across the “world’s blue highway” after so many weeks of solitude: “We are right in the middle of the major shipping lanes connecting Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Seeing dozens of vessels appear on our tracker feels surreal after days alone with the waves, a reminder that this ocean is a global thoroughfare.”

Around Britain

52 Degrees North (IE/UK): David Irving (IE), Rod Tredgett (UK), and Scott Brown (UK) are rowing 2,700km clockwise around Great Britain. Starting at Tower Bridge in London, they made their way down to the south coast and are now moving up the west coast through the Celtic Sea into the Irish Sea. 

Photo: 52 Degrees North

Slow progress has frustrated the trio. Conditions have forced them onto anchor at multiple points, sometimes for days at a time. “It is very hard to remain positive when momentum is so fragmented due to the adverse weather,” they commented on social media.  

Row with the Flow GB (UK): This six-man crew, originally called Counternavig8, had planned to row counterclockwise around mainland Britain in 2024. The weather at the time made it impossible, so they postponed the row for a year, only to face the same issues in 2025. 

After waiting weeks for an appropriate weather window and running out of time to complete the row, they changed plans and rowed clockwise. They renamed themselves Row with the Flow.

Unlike most crews rowing around Britain, they did not start from Tower Bridge; they set off from Eyemouth on the east coast of Scotland. Having started three days ago, they are working their way down the east coast of Northumberland. 

Arctic Ocean 

The Arctic Challenge 2025 (US): This four-person American crew is rowing 1,000km across the Arctic Ocean from Tromsø, Norway, to Longyearbyen, Svalbard. The speed record for a four-person team on that section of the Arctic Ocean was set in 2023 by Ocean Revival, which made the crossing in 15 days, 5 hours, and 32 minutes. This crew hopes to beat that time. If they complete the row, they will be the first all-American team to row the polar ocean. 

They started on July 4 and are getting used to the icy conditions. The last 24 hours have been wet and cloudy, and they are in battery conservation mode. They are making excellent progress, having already completed 70% of the journey. 

It’s time for our 2025 Black & Gold Banneret Awards! This week we present our nominees for each award honoring the best people, moments and performances from your UCF Knights in the 2024-25 athletic year.

Our staff has chosen the nominees for each award. We will then vote on them this week, and you the fans, can vote as well in the poll below. The winner of the fan vote counts as one vote, and in the event of a tie, the award goes to the winner of the fan vote.

Women’s Play of the Year Nominees

Jazmen Newberry’s Comeback — Track & Field

• Thanks to a rain delay, it was a late night for the 4x400m relay team at the Big 12 Outdoor Championships, with the race not even getting started until near midnight Eastern time. Entering the anchor leg, Jazmen Newberry sat a distant third behind TCU’s Bryce Brazzell (1.83 seconds) and Arizona’s Antonia Sanchez Nunez (1.32 seconds). While the commentators were focused on the Wildcat tracking down the Horned Frog, the Knight turned on the afterburners. The UAlbany transfer crossed the finish line 0.26 seconds ahead of Sanchez Nunez to win the heat and got UCF their second Big 12 Outdoor gold medal after beating out the previous heat winner Iowa State’s time by 0.21 seconds.

Olivia Lincer’s Deuce Point — Women’s Tennis

• Olivia Lincer had already fought off three match points to reach this deuce point with Oklahoma State’s Melissa Ercan in the Big 12 Tournament Semifinals (6:55 in the video above). If Ercan gets the ball by her, or she makes a mistake, it’s over for UCF, who is tied 3-3 with the Cowgirls. When Ercan sends a shot straight down her right sideline, Lincer sprints over and executes a one-handed backhand shot to keep the rally alive. The Cowgirl could not respond, hitting the ball into the net and sending the Knights to the Big 12 Championship Match.

Ashleigh Griffin’s Go-Ahead Homer vs. Stetson — Softball

• The UCF Softball team was already having a historic power-hitting night in DeLand, with their seven home runs to that point helping close an 11-run deficit to Stetson to just two by the seventh inning. With two runners on base and down to her last strike, all Ashleigh Griffin needed was one swing of the bat to complete the largest comeback in program history (4:15 in the video above).

Madi Simon’s Home Run Robbery — Softball

• It was a standout moment in a statement series for UCF Softball against #4 Arizona Wildcats. Both teams were tied up, 3-3, in the fourth inning of Game 2, a game the Knights would ultimately take, 5-4, to clinch the series. That only makes this center-field home-run robbery by Madi Simon all the more impactful.

First 4+ Boat’s Comeback — Rowing

• Halfway through its C Final race at the NCAA Rowing Championships, the UCF Rowing team’s First 4+ boat sat 2.84 seconds, or around half a boat length, back of Virginia Cavaliers. Over the next 1,000 meters, the Knights tracked down and passed the Cavaliers, taking the win by 1.276 seconds and becoming the only one of head coach Mara Allen’s three boats to claim victory in their C Final.

The 6’6 Stevens is averaging 14.4 points, 8.6 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.4 blocks in 29.2 minutes per game. All of those are career highs under first-year Sparks head coach Lynne Roberts. Adler explains how Stevens has thrived in Roberts’ system:

“She’s in a very pick-and-roll-heavy scheme that involves a lot of sort of cutting and just threes and rim shots off the ball. And … part of it is her sort of best position has been an open question for a while. She played the five and the four and the three, really, in Chicago, and it all really varied based on the teammate she was with. There was a lot of playing with Candace [Parker]. There was a lot of playing with Stef Dolson. …

“Now, playing with Dearica Hamby, things look really different because Dearica Hamby is an offensive five, a defensive four. So it’s a sort of a weird mix. I think it’s exciting to think about what that looks like once Cam Brink comes back. But until then, I think it’s really accentuating how good she is as a cutter, how quickly she thinks off the move, and how decisive she is, and just how much skill she has playing in space without having to worry about really anything getting cluttered up along the way, and I think it’s really brought out what her game is.”

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Williams was named an All-Star this season for the first time in her seven seasons. She is averaging 14.0 points, 4.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.6 steals and 0.5 blocks in 33.9 minutes per game. Those are career highs in every category except rebounds. Cruse explains what’s different about how Williams is playing this season:

“I think she’s been more aggressive off the catch. I think we’ve seen her have a more aggressive scoring mentality this season. I was looking at the finishing numbers, and the finishing numbers still aren’t great in half court, but … it seems better when I watch her play. Obviously in transition, she’s insane. That game against New York, the way she was making plays in passing lanes doesn’t make sense. Like, you shouldn’t be this athletic on a basketball court. …

“She’s made more pull-up twos this year. I think she’s been more effective in that way [than] she has been in previous seasons. And then defensively, she’s ridiculous on that end.”

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