Stanford – I couldn’t have better for Stanford’s female rugby team.
Playing in his local territory against his rival Cal, the cardinal won his second National Rugby D1 D1 championship consecutive on Saturday night with a dominant victory of 57-25.
It was the sixth general title for Stanford (11-0), who had since 2008 before winning the championship last year in Houston after a five-hour ray delay.
But while that victory was far from home and was played in front of a scarce crowd due to the weather, this wine with posts full in the Rugby Steuber stadium, which was the host of the finals for the first time since 2012.
When the final whistle exploded, Stanford students pour into the field to join the players in celebration.
“Being here and seeing everyone in the stands and seeing energy when people rushed to the field, honestly it was a bit too overwhelming,” said second year student Kiersten, who was called MVP.
Stanford returned to all except two players of the team last year. In addition to two closed games against Cal Poly, who won the D2 championship before Saturday, Stanford’s closest victory this season was 36-21 against Cal two months ago. The cardinal advanced to the finals by beating Arizona 70-12 and Western Washington 42-10.
“Honestly, it means everything,” said Read. “When leaving a championship, there was a lot of pressure for performance to achieve that same standard, and I am proud to have the discipline and tenacity to return and do hard work.”
Stanford marked the tone early, scoring the first 14 points and prohibits an advantage of 26-5.
“We knew they were going to get hard and try to crush us in the first 10 minutes,” Cardinal Captain Leila Wang Gowett said. “We were thinking of showing them in the first piece, in the first work, how we can show them because this more.”
Cal put in 26-15 with 34 minutes remaining, but Read scored two attempts in three minutes to put Stanford again by 21. The first year student Chisa Ogaki then the advantage of a turnover and ran 60 meters without touching to try to seal the victory.
Stanford coach Richard Ashfield, accredited the kick and defensive pressure of the team, along with the physical impact of Shope Addhanome Shipman and Madisyn Cunningham, for the race in the second half that the championship decides.
It was the first appearance in the championship game for a CAL program established in 1998.
“For them, there are so many things that are adjusting to this game,” said Cal Katie Chou coach about her players. “There is a pressure in this game, being in this type of crowd, being in this high visibility game, which we have simply experienced before, so I think what you saw is that there were pause packages while we maintain, but we kept, but we kept Key, Keel, that we continue, we continue harming us, we are still the toy, we continue to be the trial, we continue to keep, we kept keep We stayed, we stayed, we kept staying, we kept, we kept the Kid, we are still the trial.
The cardinal scored 31 consecutive points to extend the advantage to 57-15 until Cal scored two attempts in the last two minutes.
“What I have been thinking about the whole season is after the last year we were hungry and we tried what the National Championship was like, so we returned here thinking that we wanted to do it again and pushing to go to themselves,” Gowett said. “Tonight, under the lights, all that hard work really showed.”
Gowett said no Stanford player had played competitive rugby before coming to the farm. Some, like Ogaki, had collected a rugby ball until seven months ago.
While Stanford celebrated, Lime supporters also went out to the countryside and formed a human tunnel so that the Bears were executed, honoring the most successful season of the programs to date.
“I’m proud of this team,” Chou said. “We have never dropped here before and unfortunately the score did not come out on our way, but as I told them in the circle, we will return. We will definitely return. They did not arrive all the way, but they have made history.”
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