Northeastern punished Air Force turnovers and won the CRAA Women’s D1 7s Sunday in Dallas.
In a competitive tournament of just seven teams, this event crowned yet another 7s champion, and one that played a strong team game and showcased several players with the ability to score from long range.
Day One saw Air Force take the bye to the semifinals. With only seven teams, Pool A had just the three teams. Northeastern won that pool and the plan then was to funnel every team into some sort of playoff.
Air Force, winner of Pool B, took a bye to the semis and the remaining six teams played off in Saturday’s quarterfinals to fill out the semifinal round.
Northeastern, UConn, and UMass all won their quarterfinals to set up Sunday’s action.
Meanwhile, the top-seeded losing quarterfinalist (Virginia Tech) took a bye to the Bowl Final, and the other two, Wyoming and BU, played off to meet them.
Air Force, Northeastern, UConn, Mass Leads CRAA 7s
Semifinals
Northeastern vs UConn
These two rivals knew each other pretty well and so it was very much a chess match. Scrumhalf Hannah Wilker ran weak when Northeastern stole a scrum put-in and she was over for the opening try.
Despite the hard work of Shayla Baker and Keisha Durden for UConn, Northeastern had too many weapons. Anastasia Hudak was a good distributor and quick to punish mistakes, while Torry Izsa put in a ton of work linking the pieces together and making tackles. With Ray Dauby and Emily Minkler able to finish off movements, NU pulled away 29-5.
Air Force vs UMass
UMass used their size to push a relatively young AFA team back. But Air Force’s defense was just good enough. UMass scored early and has the weapon of Erin Bergeron to test Air Force on the outside. But a good team approach seemed to work for the Zoomies.
With Isabella Mulally finding inroads while Emily Reeves and Sara Scrapchansky were winning rucks and making key connection plays, Air Force toughed it out 17-12. Julianna Romano scored a key try to seal it.
3rd Place
Bergeron torched UConn for an early try but a break by Baker and finish by Hunter Vertuccio inched UConn closer.
Connecticut continued to put on the pressure, holding the ball inside the UMass 22 and finally crashing it over. It was the Huskies’ rucking that really got them going. That made it 10-7 UConn, but UMass replied, playing a little hot potato with the ball until they put Sofia Murphy-Genao through. More slightly risky offloads and then Bergeron got it with a little space and was gone—UMass led 19-10.
Time was ticking away, but UConn finished strong. Durden weaved her way through to make it 19-15, and then, with time almost up, the Huskies once again put on the pressure and eventually dove over for the game-winner.