Women DI College 7s Pool Play Wraps
Pool Play is done in the women’s DI college 7s championships.
Lindenwood held off Central Washington in the most dramatic game of the day, 7-5, thanks to a try under the posts. Penn State swept JMU and UC Davis to win Pool A at 2-0. Life crushed all before them.
Below are the standings, and then after that the standings once the best result for each team in Pool B and C are removed.
Why? Because that’s how the results are evened up for the seedings, as Pool A just has three teams.
With that method, Life is the #1 seed, and Lindenwood #2.
So this is how we have the QFs matchups:
#1 Life v #8 Chico State
#4 Central Washington v #5 Stanford
#3 Penn State v #6 UC Davis
#2 Lindenwood v James Madison #7
DI Women College National QFs Almost Set
Three teams are through to the women’s DI college quarterfinals after they won play-in games this weekend.
The Chico State Wildcats hammered the University of Washington 58-3 with an impressive team effort. Their back;one attack was smooth and the forwards hit hard.
UCSD dominated Cal 77-12 to advance, while UC Davis slammed Arizona State 96-10. Davis is pegged as one of the favorites to make the final, and they will be hosting the West bracket of the quarterfinals.
One more western team is to be decided, when UCLA visits Washington State in a week.
On the Eastern bracket, the Mason-Dixon playoffs are next weekend. One team is already decided, with Central Florida having won the Florida division.
A Commentator's Thoughts on Rugby Numbers
I have been fortunate to work on a few webcasts recently as a play-by-play or color commentator (actually, I did 16 games in the space of ten days but who’s counting?), and I have some opinions that have sprung up from those experiences.
First off, I have to apologize to any player whose name I mispronounced. It’s not easy, but it’s also not easy to have your family and friends what you play and hear the announce butcher your name. No fun. There’s a reason, of course. At times I have done work on just one game in a day, and when that happens I have the lineup in front of me several hours before, and I can study the names, try to memorize their numbers, and say their names over and over again.
Some years ago I did commentary with Brian Vizard for the Utah v BYU game, and we spent over an hour going over name pronunciations.
UCONN Wins DI Fall Title
Connecticut held off a second-half comeback to defeat Air Force 19-12 for the Women’s DI Fall Championship title. UCONN will now compete for the national championship against the DI spring champion on May 7.
It took 36 minutes before the scoreboard ticked over. UCONN employed the boot of flyhalf Nikki Sills to keep Air Force on the retreat and leaned on its aggressive forwards to exert pressure. Air Force was burdened by penalties, but played valiant defense that repeatedly rebuffed the Huskies’ attack repeatedly. Most impressively, the Colorado Springs side stifled UCONN’s best scoring opportunities about 10 minutes in. With a yellow card leaving the team short-handed, Air Force held up a dive-over attempt and forced a backline knock-on to end the threat.
DI Fall Final: A 1993 Rematch
When the U.S. Air Force Academy and University of Connecticut contest the fall championship on Sunday, Dec. 6, it won’t be the first time that these women’s DI colleges have battled toward a title. The pair played in the 1993 national championship, and UConn, making its second consecutive appearance that year, took home the trophy. Air Force might have experienced defeat in that match 22 years ago, but the Colorado Springs team won four national titles between 1991-2003.
FIU Leading Florida
As the fall season comes to a close, there are already glimpses of the action that awaits in the spring. West Coast teams have played each other at tournaments like Scrum by the Sea and Stanford 7s, and the Pacific Mountain Conference has held North Division games. And Florida, which now contains the only DI conference in the South (excluding the southern pool of the Mason-Dixon conference), has seen two former DII teams impress early on.
Time to Attack: DI Quarterfinals
The women’s DI college fall championship has been the toughest competition to figure out, but now that it’s set, let’s see what’s occurring this weekend.
Saturday hosts the DI fall quarterfinals. There are two regionals: The East convenes in Pittsburgh, the West in Colorado Springs. Saturday's victors will contest their respective semifinals on Sunday, and the two 2-0 teams will move onto Furman University for the fall championship the first weekend in December. The fall champion then books its spot in the 2016 national championship against the spring titleholder.
In the East Regional, the game to watch is Notre Dame vs. Princeton. The pair are coming out of strong conferences, have played competitive games all fall, and are eager to play regional ball again.
Princeton Plays Into Post-Season
Since the creation of the Ivy League conference, it has always been Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, and Princeton occupying the top tier of the women’s competition. This year, the quartet pursued different post-season paths beyond the conference championship. All but Princeton aligned with the new varsity championship, which contested its quarterfinals last weekend. Meanwhile, the Tigers, which finished 3rd in the Ivies after a 17-12 win over Harvard, moved onto the DI fall play-in round. The varsity teams lost their respective quarterfinals last weekend, while Princeton defeated Boston College 86-10 and continues onto the DI fall quarterfinals this weekend in Pittsburgh.
Princeton went 2-3 in the regular season, posting competitive losses to the varsity teams and blowout wins against the traditional “tier 2” teams.
DI Weekend Recap: Where Do the Winners Go?
A couple of conference championships highlight last weekend's DI action, and their results have unique playoff ramifications:
Penn State posted two 100-plus-point shutouts en route to another Big Ten conference trophy. The hosts defeated #4 Purdue 105-0 in Saturday’s semifinal, and #2 Indiana 108-0 Sunday for the title. Alix Tyson, Azniv Nalbandian, Gabby Cantorna, Kacy Dux, Katie Mueller, Kristina Perry, Scout Cheeks, Taylah Pipkin, and Tess Feury had multi-try weekends, while Aimee Little, Annaliese Zolgar, Carly Waters, Courtney Williams, and Megan Lowe also scored.
Varsity Championship Names Quarterfinalists
Eight members of the National Collegiate Women’s Varsity Rugby Association (NCWVRA) will initiate the record books, competing in the first-ever championship quarterfinals taking place this weekend. The higher seed will host the match, and the four victors will advance to the semifinals on Friday, Nov. 20 at Brown University. The championship and 3rd place matches will occur on Sunday, Nov. 22 in Providence, R.I.
Dartmouth, Brown Into Ivy Final
Dartmouth and Brown won their respective Ivy League championship semifinals today and will play for the title tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. EST at Big Green's Brophy Field in Hanover, N.H.
Dartmouth led Princeton 39-0 at the break, as pack captain Yeja Dunn led with a multi-try performance. Sophomore lock Ashley Zepeda scored the first of her two tries, and senior Kerry Conlin also dotted down. Freshmen Camille Johnson (P, C) and Kat Ramage (2C) handled the kicking duties.
The Tigers prevented the shutout by opening the second half with a Philo Kane try, a score that came off a driving lineout. But Zepeda’s second try, set up by prop Dalia Rodriquez Caspeta and wing Morgan McGonagle, marked the final score and 44-5 win.
Women DI College Fall Top 20 - Nov. 6, 2015
We’ve updated the Women DI College Fall Top 20 in advance of some playoff-deciding conference championships. Some interesting results – as is the theme this season – have punctuated the previous two weeks as well.
It’s important to note that the competitive difference between each ranking isn’t uniform. Teams #3 through #7 have swapped positions nearly every weekend, and did so after exchanging single-digit contests. But at some point, there is a drop-off in competition and the point differentials become more erratic.
What's Happening in DI?
Where does DI stand? Everywhere. There are essentially three different competitions being contested at the level above DII, and it’s been a laborious process sorting out who’s playing where. Below is a summary of the competitions and which teams/conferences are competing in them:
DI ELITE is a new championship, and USA Rugby invited eight of the top DI teams in the country to participate in the spring tournament. Teams had to commit at the beginning of the 2015-16 season (only seven are known at this point), so there would be no confusion as to which teams were competing toward the regular DI championship. Participants include:
BYU (Mountain West)
Central Washington (Pacific Mountain North)
Indiana (Big Ten)
Life (Independent)
Lindenwood (Independent)
New Mexico (Mountain West)
Penn State (Big Ten)
Varsity Coaches Poll - Nov. 2, 2015
The National Collegiate Women's Varsity Rugby Association (NCWVRA) has released its latest Coaches Poll, a ranking of varsity programs that are also eligible for the first-ever varsity championship. Only those coaches whose programs are championship-eligible were surveyed.
The nine coaches ranked the teams 1 through 9. First place affords 10 points, second place nine points, etc., and a team's "score" is the average of those nine rankings. The final poll will determine the quarterfinal match-ups, set to take place on Nov. 14 at the higher seed's home field. The semifinals will be contested on Nov. 20, and the final on Nov. 22 at Brown University.
Notre Dame Finish With Michigan Shutout
Notre Dame got a nice boost heading into the Big Ten championship this weekend, defeating Michigan 22-0 in a wet, physical game. The Irish finish the regular season 4-1, losing only to Penn State and unable to reschedule its game against Indiana. The latter are traditionally the top two teams in the conference and have committed to the DI Elite championship in the spring. In other words, there's a berth to the DI fall playoffs ready to be won.
