After a shaky 2014, the Washington Loggers girls program bounced back with a sweep of the competition in the Great Northwest Challenge.

The Loggers defeated Hawaii 24-5 and then Oregon 45-12 on Saturday, and then Montana 80-0 in the semis and Oregon 22-12 in the final on Sunday.

The final was a bit of a battle, as Washington ran out to a 15-0 lead, saw Oregon score to make it 15-7 at halftime, and had to work to hold off the Red Hawks all day.

“At halftime I thought we were going to take the second half and roll with it,” said Washington Coach Parisa Asgharzadeh. “But Oregon came back and fought, and showed a lot of heart. They gave us a run for our money. I think we went into the game a little bit soft because we’d played them

two times recently and they thought it was going to be a breeze. Props to the Oregon team for tightening it up.”

Washington struggled in tight, with the scrums causing problems the Loggers didn’t seem to be able to fix, and the rucks a problem, also. But their defense and their teamwork in the open field, along with the scoring touch of Emily Prentice and Leah Ingold (two tries each in the final), proved enough.

“We came in with a soft defense,” said Asgharzadeh. “But we talked about it all [Saturday] night and after that, too, about building our defensive wall. They did a really good job there. We brought in a lot of new players this year and gelled together and had a blast. This team is very coachable.”

On the JV side, it was a bit of a new thing for the Loggers. They struggled to get a full side together and brought only 14 players. The series with Oregon was all Red Hawks, with two blowout wins on the first day, and a closer, 33-22 victory for Oregon on the second.

“This is the first year for us having a JV and they had a rough go, but we got better on the second day,” said Asgharzadeh. “Hopefully we’ll start a tradition with the JVs.”

Great Northwest Challenge Girls Scores:

JV

Oregon 52 Washington 12

Oregon 47 Washington 17

Oregon 33 Washington 22

Varsity

Washington 24 Hawaii 5

Oregon 63 Montana 0

Washington 45 Oregon 12

Hawaii 17 Montana 0

Washington 80 Montana 0

Oregon W Hawaii L

3rd/4th Hawaii 61 Montana 10

Final Washington 22 Oregon 12