Stanford – It couldn’t have been better for the Stanford women’s rugby team.
Playing on his lawn at home against his rival Cal, the Cardinal won his second national women’s rugby championship consecutive on Saturday evening with a dominant victory of 57-25.
It was the sixth title in total for Stanford (11-0), which had not won since 2008 before winning the championship last year in Houston after a five-hour whip.
But while this victory was far from her house and was played in front of a sparse crowd because of the weather, she came with packed stands at the Steuber Rugby Stadium, which hosted the final for the first time since 2012.
When the final whistle blew, Stanford students flocking on the field to join the players to celebrate.
“Being here and seeing everyone in the stands and seeing energy when people rushed to the field, it was honestly overwhelming,” said second student Kiersten Lees, who was appointed MVP.
Stanford returned all players except two of the team last year. In addition to two tight games against Cal Poly, who won the D2 championship earlier on Saturday, the closest victory to Stanford this season was 36-21 against Cal two months ago. The cardinal qualified for the final by beating Arizona 70-12 and Western Washington 42-10.
“Honestly, that means everything,” said Lees. “When I left a championship, there was a lot of pressure to make this same standard, and I am proud that we had the discipline and the tenacity to go back and work hard.”
Stanford set the tone early, marking the first 14 points and taking an advance of 26-5.
“We knew that they were going to go out hard and try to crush each other in the first 10 minutes,” said Cardinal Captain Leila Wang Gowett. “We thought of showing them in the first set, in the first play, how can we show them that we want more.”
Cal arrived at 26-15 years old with 34 minutes to play, but Lees scored two tries in three minutes to put Stanford back at 21. The first year Chisa Ogaki then took advantage of a turnover and ran 60 meters intact to try to seal the victory.
Stanford coach Richard Ashfield awarded the team’s kick-up match and the team’s defensive pressure, as well as the physical impact of submarines Hope Addhanome-Shipman and Madisyn Cunningham, for the second half race of the second half.
It was the first appearance of a championship match for a CAL program created in 1998.
“For them, there are so many things they adapt in this match,” said Cal, Katie Chou, about his players. “There is a pressure in this game, being in this type of crowd, being in this high -visibility game, that we have not been seen before, so I think what you saw is that there were lulls while we adjusted ourselves, but we finished hard. Each year, we continue to climb. We were nowhere this year, so this program was going to continue.”
The cardinal finally scored 31 consecutive points to extend the advance at 57-15 until CAL marked two trials in the last two minutes.
“What I thought all season after last year, we were hungry and we had a taste of what it was to win the national championship, so we came back here thinking that we wanted to do it again and pushing ourselves,” said Gowett. “Tonight, under the lights, all this hard work has really shown.”
Gowett said that no Stanford player had played competitive rugby before coming to the farm. Some, like Ogaki, had not taken a rugby ball until seven months ago.
While Stanford celebrated, the CAL supporters also came to the field and formed a human tunnel so that the Bears can spend, honoring the most successful season of the program to date.
“I’m proud of this team,” said Chou. “We have never been here before and unfortunately, the score did not take place in our direction, but as I told them in the circle, we will be back. We will certainly be back. They have not succeeded, but they made the story.”
California Daily Newspapers
