Cameron Yriondo played four seasons of college soccer, exhausted his eligibility, and a Rhode Island court has now confirmed that the NCAA's new rulebook doesn't change that. His emergency motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction was denied Wednesday by Providence Superior Court Judge Sarah Taft-Carter — and the language of the ruling is going to matter well beyond this one case.
"The benefits of competition cannot only be conferred through collegiate competition," Taft-Carter wrote, pointing out that Yriondo himself began exploring professional options in Spain after the 2025-26 season ended. That acknowledgment weakened his own argument. If you're already looking for contracts abroad, the irreparable harm claim gets complicated fast.
How Yriondo ended up back at Providence at all
The backstory here is genuinely messy. Yriondo played at Division II Seattle Pacific in 2022 and 2023, transferred to Virginia for 2024, then moved again to Providence. He started 14 of 16 matches for the Friars in 2025, recorded an assist in their opening 4-1 win over Sacred Heart, and was clearly still a functional college player. When a federal judge in Colorado issued an injunction in the Wisne v. NCAA antitrust case — temporarily granting Class of 2022 athletes a fifth year — Providence coach Craig Stewart called Yriondo back. He was practicing with the team by early August.
Then the Colorado injunction got stayed. Yriondo filed his complaint against the NCAA in early September, alleging breach of contract, breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, arbitrary and capricious conduct, and declaratory judgement. The NCAA pushed back on Sept. 15. The court sided with the NCAA two weeks later.
The core legal issue is that the NCAA's new Five-Year Period of Eligibility — formally adopted Aug. 1 and applying to the Class of 2023 onward — didn't retroactively restore eligibility for players who already burned through four seasons under the old Four-Seasons-in-Five-Years rule. Taft-Carter was clear: "As he was ineligible under the previous rule, he remained ineligible under the new bylaw."
The cases that now hang on this ruling
This decision doesn't exist in a vacuum. URI football players AJ Peña and Justin Carcel filed a similar motion in Washington County Superior Court, and Taft-Carter was the presiding judge when that case was first heard in September. Her reasoning here will almost certainly frame how she approaches that one.
Meanwhile, Providence men's basketball coach Bryan Hodgson confirmed Thursday that two of his players — South Florida transfer Joseph Pinion and Saint Joseph's transfer Derek Simpson — are currently practicing with the Friars while pursuing fifth-year eligibility through the NCAA itself, not the courts. Neither has filed legal action yet. Given what just happened to Yriondo, that path through the courts looks significantly narrower than it did a month ago.
Taft-Carter was sympathetic, said so in writing, and still denied the motion. That combination — personal sympathy, legal denial — is exactly the kind of ruling that discourages future filings. The judge recognized the situation was hard. She just didn't find the legal argument convincing enough to override the NCAA's framework.
"The harm alleged by plaintiff is his inability to play soccer at a high level," the ruling read. "Plaintiff competed in four seasons of collegiate soccer." Four seasons. That was always going to be a difficult wall to get over, and Yriondo couldn't clear it.
