The Stanford Women's Rugby team clinched the CRAA Women's D1 Championship title in a game that saw them victorious over Grand Canyon University 'Lopes with a final score of 36-19 on May 5th.
The game was delayed close to six hours because of lightning in the area but was, thankfully, played on Sunday evening and the teams stepped up to produce a very entertaining and well-played game. GCU had arrived at this game thanks to close wins over Cal (21-17) and Virginia (14-10). Stanford, for their part, had defeated Florida and Western Washington (the one team they had lost to) to make this game.
Eventually the storms eased up and there was a little wind and a little rain, and plenty of running rugby.
Stanford started strong with a brilliant opening try from flyhalf Laura Bocek, executing a training ground play to perfection. That was followed up with a try from the speedy Journey Washingtonhigh set up y a quick tap from No. 8 Mahie Wilhelm, and more penalties from GCU led to Wilhelm getting one for herself.
Little errors put Grand Canyon in a hole and they missed a scoring chance in a bit of a bizarre play—Fullback Samantha Garcia's penalty goal close to the posts clanged off the post. Garcia was busy picking up the kicking tee; had she instead been watching how the kick was going, she would likely have been able to crab the rebound and probably score. As it was, everyone was surprised, but Stanford got out of it.
