The CRAA Women’s Premier 7s continues to be the gold standard of level of play and while there were only nine teams in the competition, it was hugely competitive throughout.
In the end, Life University pushed aside some key player absences and an early loss to win the championship, beating Lindenwood in overtime.
The three pools were very tough, and raised a few eyebrows in that the tougher games were early on Day One. But that meant more of a separation between those big-time matchups what might be in the quarterfinals and semifinals.
That was the intent.
The upshot was that major contending teams found themselves losing early games. And that, in the end, was a good thing.
All three opening pool matches were decided by a try or less. Dartmouth’s teamwork and defense got them a 17-14 win over Lindenwood. Harvard was also defensively strong and their speed on the outside—Sana’a Lunon, Lennox London, and Cameron Fields—were the difference as Harvard held off the Running Eagles 12-7. In fact it was Field and London in combination that set up Field diving over in the corner for the game-winner.
Sacred Heart started out strong and took a 14-5 lead into the final minute But Army was able to burst over, paced by the hard work of Ellie Kearney and Cece Ollis, setting up Gabby Winker in at the corner.
The Black Knights had enough time for the restart, and when their chase forced a knock-on, Army had one more shot. They took it. Chloe de Leon got the ball with space out wide, sidestepped past one, and when another player caught her cleats in the think Indiana grass, de Leon was through. Game-winner, 19-14.
The rest of the games weren’t quite like that but the other teams found out that they had to be thinking quickly, moving quickly, and executing in order to compete.
Davenport pushed Life and Princeton put a scare into Army, but there was more rugby to be played on Sunday.
All nine teams were seeded after pool play. The top eight played into the quarterfinals. Davenport, who had been torched by Harvard, would have to wait for a chance to play for 5th.
After Day One, some players had put their hands up. Lissa Salisbury for Life was a revelation. Tall and athletic she was superb on chasing restarts and gave Life an extra dimension. Maria-Jean Paulino was turning into a breakout finisher for Sacred Heart. Ollis was the heart of the Army engine. Annie Henrich was piecing it all together for Dartmouth. Makenna Bailey and Amy Brice were combining well for Lindenwood. And for Harvard it seemed like everyone had something to give, but Sorensen Award winner Tiahna Padilla was everywhere, working as a setup expert, stepping at halftime, and attacking, as well as leading the defense and playing just about every minute.
The quarterfinals saw the two closes games being Lindenwood 28-12 over Sacred Heart, and Life in an almighty battle with Dartmouth. Sacred Heart was pressuring to tie it when a turnover led to Madison Jersey going to distance to seal the game.
With Dartmouth, the Big Green kept getting into penalty trouble and with Cece Rose scoring a crucial long-range try, it was 14-12 going into halftime. Life battled over for another try but Dartmouth helped them seal it
with two yellow cards, meaning they had to play with five players. Another try was inevitable and Salisbury set up Olivia Frisby for the game-sealing score.
So on to the semis on Day Two and this was some high-class entertainment. Lindenwood vs Harvard was a battle. Lindenwood did an excellent job at bottling up Harvard’s fast players. But they couldn’t score, either.
Sam Levine went in from long range early after a nice sequence of passes, giving Lindenwood a 5-0 lead.
But the Day Two Bugaboo crept in. With fatigue and the stakes rising ever more, restart errors started to creep into the game.
Having scored, you can’t fail to kick the kickoff 10 meters, it just gives the opposition a chance to come back. This is what happened with Lindenwood and punished them, getting Victory Stanley a chance to accelerate down the sideline to tie it.
Bailey broke through from long range to tie it up, and while the Lions missed the makeable conversion, it was now 10-5. And Lindenwood did it again … a restart error led to a free kick for Harvard and, after a time, Stanley scored her second.
It was 10-10 at halftime and it remained 10-10. Both teams had chances to win it but the support runners were consistently slow to the breakdown, opening up chances for turnovers, or, more commonly, holding-on penalties.
This happened at almost every breakdown for a time.
So … overtime.
Harvard went into overtime with a yellow card, so defending was going to be a struggle. The Lions got the ball to Brice and he took the angle and within about 70 seconds Lindenwood had won and were in the final.
For Life vs Army, it was a little different, with Life getting a superb performance from Hattie Greenwood at halfback and tries from Rose, the Running Eagles would win 33-17. However, Salisbury would go off with an injury not to return. That changed things for the Life U. team.
Well, as Head Coach Ryszard Chadwick says, next one up. They needed to adjust, just as they had adjusted after losing their opener. Both teams in the final, in fact, had lost their opener, and become the better for it.
