Wheeling, Vassar, Endicott Takes NCR Women Titles
Wheeling, Vassar, Endicott Takes NCR Women Titles
Wheeling University defeated Southern Nazarene 58-17 Saturday to win the NCR Women's D1 championship.
As mentioned on GRR earlier—A New Landscape Heralded In NCR Women D1 Final—this is the culmination of some changes in NCR Women D1, with two school-supported teams in the final. Notre Dame College, another school-supported team, made the final the last two years but it was a club team, Michigan, which had come away with the trophy.
Wheeling is a brand-new program that benefited from a strong recruiting effort from Head Coach Ken Pape (who is a big fan of the Next Phase Rugby recruiting app) and also from the fact that several players transferred from Pape's old program, Lander, to Wheeling.
This allowed Pape to field not only a talented side, but one that was more experienced that you might expect for a brand-new team.
The result was a series of dominiant wins and a 12-0 record.
In the final, six different Cardinals scored.
Bella Gullatta opened the scoring with a long-range penalty goal, and then skipper Alexis Dallas blazed through tacklers to touch down. Gullatta converted to make it 10-0. Joelle Taylor scored off a tap penalty, and right after the restart the Cardinals sent it wide through Abbi Siller and Liz Sinatra to set up Alli Davis in space. Gullatta converted and added a penalty before SNU was able to answer with some impressive running to score twice.
Still Wheeling led 24-12 at halftime and expanded their lead after the break.
Turnover ball . Davis took it the rest of the way and touched the ball down before Gullatta redeemed herself with the conversion kick to make it a 24-0 Cardinal lead. Southern Nazarene's high-powered offense would get going themselves, scoring two tries over the final 20 minutes to get to within two scores of the Cardinals. The team went into the locker room with Wheeling holding a 24-12 lead and looking to extend that into the second half.
Nine minutes into the second half, the Cardinal's defense would create the opportunity, forcing a Storm turnover. Tocarra Nelson set up Tamzin Boyce, who exploded for a long run and try. Jemmley Rivera added a try about 13 minutes later and it was now 38-10.
The speedy Boyce would score her second try of the day in the 56th minute, and then Gullatta kicked to space and chased the ball down. SNU answered with a try but now it was 55-17.
In the final minutes Abbi Siller got her team close to the try line and Rivera picked and powered over for the last try of the day. Marissa Hudson finished the game with a penalty goal and Wheeling had won 58-17. The final score was very close to Wheeling's average game score of 54-8. It's worth noting that as dominant as the Cardinals were, they did encounter more trouble in the playoffs, giving up 63 of their 101 points conceded in the three playoff rounds. Spare a thought for Virginia, which lost their quarterfinal match to Wheeling 31-27, easily the closest match Wheeling played all season.
Gullatta led the Cardinals with 18 points on the night. Boyce and Rivera each notched two tries. This was the third multi-try game of the season for Boyce.
D2 and D3
Vassar won NCR's D2 to cap a 15-0 season.
Paced by two tries from Leah Dourmashkin and tries from Jude Robinson, Sophia Bailey, Vassar beat UW Eau Claire 24-5 to win the D2 bracket.
It was a big day for Bailey, who had broken her ankle in last year's final against Eau Claire, a 32-29 win for the Wisconsin side.
Robinson got the Brewers brewing six minutes in with a breakthrough and try. Bailey then burst through for 75 meters just a few minutes later and 10 minutes in Vassar led 12-0 (Zoe Lynch with the conversion).
Moments later Maddie Sumrow intercepted a pass and offloaded to Dourmashkin in support and that result, with Lynch's conversion, into a 19-0 Vassar lead.
Shocked, Eau Claire did well to clamp down on defense after that. But Vassar stayed on task, thanks in part to a try-saving tackle from Robinson.
The game slowed down and it remained 19-0 until about 14 minutes into the second half. It had been an intense game with neither really able to get the upper hand. Eau Claire finally was able to bash the ball over to make it 19-5, but it was going to be too much.
The Blugolds looked to use kicks to get over the Vassar defense, but Vassar was solid under those kicks. Dourmashkin and Robinson combined nicely to counter. And finally Dourmashkin powered over for the final try.
It was an impressive season for Vassar, with 15 straight wins scoring an average of 46 points per game (including a 28-0 forfeit scoreline), and 8.7 points allowed per game. Vassar logged five shutouts, but they were tested. Marist pushed them in the Tri-State Conference semis 39-33, and Coast Guard was almost as close in the NCR D2 semi. In that game, it was, again, Robinson (three tries), Bailey (two tries), and Dourmashkin (one try) who were the danger women.
Endicott, meanwhile, won their second NCR D3 title in three years, beating Colorado School of Mines 22-15.
Fullback Tess Merrill's defense earned her MVP honors in a back-and-forth game. The key moment seemed to be when Mines were shown a yellow card for repeated infractions and killing the ball. Up 12-10, Endicott got two tries from Laryssa Landmesser to make it 22-10. Mines scored one more, but Endicott held on.