May 7 brought us five college championships games in Moraga, Calif, and the final one - one that might have been missed by the elated, the dejected, and the exhausted - turned out to be the most dramatic.

This was the DI Spring Final between Virginia and UC Davis, and it was something of a contrast. Virginia billed themselves as a small group of forwards, and yet they were superior over the ball, working multiple-phase attacks while prevent the same from Davis.

The Aggies, for their part, liked to run, and continually worked their midfield combinations to suck in defenders and try to get their wings some room.

Virginia used their most imposing forwards, prop Christy Haney and No. 8 Luma Abunimer to thunder into the Davis defense. And they also had speed - a lot of it - with wing Joy Jefferson working that Carlin Isles thing, which is you’re not supposed to run sideways, but if you’re faster than everyone else I guess it’s OK.

Both teams did much of what they wanted to do, which, of course, was why it was tied right at the end of the game.

For Virginia, Jefferson scored three tries, and Summer Harris-Jones, who can run, as well, scored one. Both fullbacks were impressive, with Carli Watt helping mitigate the Virginia kicking game with her counter-attacks, and Cary Wingo slotting into the line, and scoring a try for UVA.

Virginia led 25-13 at one point, and did so because of their superiority over the ball, and because when the Aggies got penalties called for them, they ran some slightly confused quick tap moves that didn’t come to anything. Davis didn’t look on the same page, and it almost did them in.

They did get the ball out the wing Diana Nguyen, their legally blind, tiny wing who somehow found some space. 

But as time went on, Virginia seemed to tire just a shade, and Davis picked up their game.

“We kept losing possession,” said flyhalf Becca Lehman. “We just said we needed to keep possession. We see that lose ball, that ball is ours.”

It worked. They got some penalties, and hooker Carol Sequeira, whose quick taps sometimes had left her isolated, tapped and scored in the corner.

And then Lehman herself started to break the line. Instead of passing immediately to inside center Sydney Watanabe, or outside center Eric Hipp, she started to run first.

“I like looking for the gaps, and I started seeing those gaps when I held onto the ball a little longer,” she said, “so I finally hit them and offloaded. This is my first year playing flyhalf and throughout the season we’ve been working on our chemistry, and it’s developed over time.”

So then it was tied, and out of their own 22, Davis mounted their best sequence of possession, winning the rucks with some security, and moving the ball through Lehman’s hands.

“Finally we had that connection, and it finally clicked,” he said. 

Lehman ghosted out wide, and popped a short ball to Hipp, who cut back, found a seam, and with the score 25-25 and time up, ran for the corner.

“That play, it just happens,” said Lehman. In practice we play a lot of touch and we work on those angles. I saw her run I was like go go go. She’s got this one. Nobody wanted overtime.”

Hipp scored - her second - and was MVP (probably MVP before that try). She was exciting with the ball in hand and defensively effective, even if her go-to tackling move is to grab the opponent’s sleeve and drag her down.

But there were other heroes, too. Watanabe could always be counted on to take bad ball and turn it into go-forward ball. She was supremely unselfish in her approach to the game, happy instead to see Nguyen, Hipp, Watts, and Justine Joya get the runs in space. Roxanne Lembke was a rock at lock, as was Cecilia Flores.

But Davis won, in the end, because they persevered, and not only didn’t give up, they strove, even in the final moments, to be better. No one epitomized that more than blindside flanker Erin Martin, who fought, scraped, and battled for every meter, every moment of contact, and, of course, every minute.

Why did UC Davis win the women’s DI spring championship? Heck, maybe it was goalkicking - Lehman his a conversion and a penalty, and Virginia missed all of their kicks - or maybe it was the vocal crowd cheering for them. But for this writer, it seems it was a determination to fix their little problems, even if it meant that fix came with no time left. 

Austin Brewin photos.