How did they do it?
How did Northeastern hold a team that had scored 53 points against Air Force and 45 against UConn to just one try? Northeastern secured the CRAA Women D1 championship by stifling perhaps the division’s most electric attack.
Colorado Mesa had, after falling behind 17-0, stormed through UConn the day before, outscoring those Huskies 45-5 to win the semifinal 45-25. But the operative phrase there is … the day before.
The semifinal had certainly taken something out of CMU, while Saturday’s Huskies, aka the Northeastern Mad Dogs, had something extra held in reserve.
Head Coach Keith Cattanach had two outside backs who didn’t play in Friday’s semifinal win over Air Force. Anastasia Hudak had not played on the Friday and Cattanach put her in on the right wing. Same story for Jolene Russo, who slotted in on the left wing. Try-scoring sensation Kourtney Bichotte-Dunner was back at fullback, but Cattanach now had experienced wings Anna Pocquette and Milia Chamas on the bench to spell her if she needed it. Forward Cara Stanizzi also was rested and ready to go. So while most teams would be concerned about spelling the forwards, that wasn’t what Northeastern did.
“We knew that if we could get the ball on the outside we could score,” said Cattanach. “I knew our forwards would be OK and we didn’t give them an inch in the breakdown.”
Mesa’s process included hard runs up the middle, lots of offloads, and when the defense collapses in, running wide to score. Northeastern got in their face, made good tackles, and stayed wide. When teams just hung on to a player’s ankles, Mesa was able to dish the ball.
“You can’t do drag tackles,” said Cattanach, who enjoyed watching openside flanker Hannah Milker take ballcarriers down with interest. “We do make a lot of positive tackles and that was the plan—to get them on the ground.”
