"I feel like this is a team award as much as anything," Padilla told Goff Rugby Report. "All I have wanted to do is do my best for the players around me."
Moving from center, where she was a slicing runner and constant attacking threat, to flyhalf, where she was asked to open up space for others, was an adjustment for Padilla. And yet she remained in the upper-upper echelon of the game regardless.
"It as an adjustment, and I just had to trust that Mel [Denham] and the coaches knew what was best," said Padilla. "I had to trust them, and learn to be a creator and set up my teammates."
This she did at a high level.
Padilla credits her coaching from the beginning in getting to this place. She looks up to Stephens, who was an Olympian as a teenager, and who returned to Fallbrook to coach Padilla in her senior year in high school.
"To learn the skills and the game in a low-stakes environment really helped me," she said. "I was surrounded by coaches and players of a high caliber, just like at Harvard, so I am really grateful."
Padilla will officially receive her MA Sorensen Award on June 13 at a gala event at the Washington Athletic Club in Seattle, Wash.
She was chosen from a list of hugely deserving finalists by a selection committee of coaches and media professionals.
The full list of finalists is here:
Tiahna Padilla, Harvard
Freda Tafuna, Lindenwood
Yesenia Morales, West Point
Telesi Uhatafe, Southern Nazarene
Historical MA Sorensen Award Winners
(International caps and appearance information in parentheses)
2016: Hope Rogers, Penn State (15s, RWC)
2017: Ilona Maher, Quinnipiac (15s, 7s, RWC, Olympics)
2018: McKenzie Hawkins, Lindenwood (15s, RWC)
2019: Emily Henrich, Dartmouth (15s, RWC)
2020: Alexandria Sedrick, Life University (7s, Olympics)
2021: Richelle Stephens, Lindenwood (7s, Olympics)
2022: Idia Ihensekhien, Dartmouth
2023: Keia Mae Sagapolu, Central Washington (15s, RWC)
2024: Freda Tafuna, Lindenwood (15s, RWC)
2025: Freda Tafuna, Lindenwood (15s, RWC)
2026: Tiahna Padillia, Harvard
