At least 18 women's D1 college teams are in action this weekend with an eye toward a spring championship in Houston.
These are CRAA teams and the Florida, Pacific Mountain, and Pacific Desert conferences are heating up really quick.
Pacific Mountain
Some of the Northwest teams get some games done in the fall, and so University of Oregon comes into January 1-1 and ready to take on a Western Washington team that won big over Oregon State in November. But the team to keep a close eye on is actually the Washington Huskies. A 24-20 win over Oregon last fall put everyone on notice and UW will face Oregon State this weekend.
UC Davis is at Fresno State in the only Californian Pacific Mountain game. Idle this weekend is Stanford after beating UC Davis 54-5 and Chico State 83-5 behind the attacking and defensive power of combo forward/back Laura Bocek, the overall play and goalkicking (!) of lock Elly MacKay. Wing Chloe Strager scored three tries against Davis and Bocek scored three against Chico.
Idle also is BYU, which beat Grand Canyon 46-0 in the Pacific Desert. The 'Lopes face a very good Arizona State side that won 44-10 over UCLA last weekend.
"The recruiting in the fall was really key," said ASU head Coach Chelsea McIntosh about their strong start. They added athletes who were eager to learn.
"We really tried to focus on solid fundamental skills in the fall, like ball in contact and support play. I think those fundamentals really helped on Saturday," said McINtosh. "We’re trying to run a layered attack, and there were glimpses of that really working nicely."
Captain Stephanie Davies is a key playmaker who sets up the likes of Jensen Gomez and JoJo Nieves as well as rookie Hannah Goldman. Gomez and Nieves both scored two tries on Grand Canyon. Baylee Little and Jaden Worrell are powerful running forward who give the Sun Devils excellent go-forward ball, while hardworking Julia Bognar and Paige Langford hit rucks well.
"Moving forward, we’re mainly working on tweaking details offensively while continuing to improve as a unit defensively," added McIntosh.
It's an impressive start for Arizona State, and this battle of Arizona will tell us at least if anyone can challenge BYU.
And in Florida, Central Florida is coming off a 50-point win over Florida and now takes on Florida International.
