D1 Elite is starting to heat up and it will be interesting to see how this league develops with new teams and, once again, a changed schedule.
As reported earlier, D1 Elite had moved their entire 15s season to fall in 2022 but moved it back to a season that covers the fall and the spring, while leaving some time for 7s. What this allows is for more 15s games and the teams involved are taking advantage of that.
Central Washington has eight 15s games scheduled. Lindenwood has nine scheduled this fall, as has Grand Canyon, while Penn State has 11. BYU has 10 games scheduled fall and spring, and Life University has nine.
This past weekend, Central Washington bounced back from their loss to Life with a 22-12 victory over BYU, which has moved to D1 Elite from CRAA D1. Emma McCabe, Jennilyn Aquino, Vivianne Wright, and Jessica Postle all scored tries for the Wildcats, who survived much BYU pressure in the early going before running out to a 17-0 lead at halftime.
BYU battled hard and this was a good entry for them into the very challenging D1 Elite.
"What a game," said CWU Head Coach Matt Ramirez. "Full credit to Coach Whippy and BYU. They kept us pinned in our own 22 meter for the first 25 minutes of the game. We asked a lot of the squad on defense this past week in preparation, and to see the response the team had was great. I'm extremely proud of the team."
Ramirez praised Emma McCabe and Georgia Budd for setting the tone in the front row, while wings Lilly Thomas and Vivianne Wright were very dangerous out wide.
