2003 Final Four Results
Greetings from Palo Alto, CA and Stanford University. (Skip Shackelford's comments)
This weekend the AF Women's Rugby Team competed in the USA Rugby National Women's Collegiate "Final Four" Championship. Through the Sweet 16's portion of the tournament, AF, Illinois, Penn State, and UC-San Diego advanced to the Final Four. Based on season's ranking and brackets, the Saturday matches were AF vs Penn State and Illinois vs UC-San Diego.
Saturday's game against Penn State was played in a mix of sun and drizzle. We beat Penn State last year for the national championship and knew they would be a very tough team. The first half saw much of the play in the PSU half of the field, but their solid defense against a variety of attacks kept us off of the scoreboard. Yet, the AF pressure did finally lead to a score during the injury time w/ a great steal by the backs, and kick ahead by C1C Hamilton-Brown that was picked up by C1C Missy Smith to score a try and five points. C2C Bre McNair made a great kick from an off-angle to give AF a 7-0 lead at the half. The second half was hard fought with Penn State and AF showing their strength at defense. Penn State made a punt to clear the ball from their end of the field. Almost immediately the coaches saw the potential for a score. The ball went straight to C1C Nikki Hamilton-Brown out on the far wing. She had open room to run and took off for the corner marker. She made the try and gave AF a 12-0 lead. As the second half progressed PSU continued to play a hard and aggressive game. They began to make progress by putting the ball out to their backs. Eventually they broke through not one, but twice. PSU was unable to convert the kicks, the AF defense held, so the match ended AF 12, PSU 10.
Illinois beat UC-San Diego so Sunday's championship final was AF vs Illinois. The match began with overcast skies, a slight breeze, and pleasant temperatures. From the first kick, it was evident Illinois did not want a repeat of last year where AF beat Illinois 7-5 in the semi-finals. They had an aggressive set of forwards, a very disciplined and skilled set of backs, and a kicking game as good as ours. After 33 minutes of play they had rolled up a 15-0 lead over AF. Shortly thereafter, the AF forwards started to make a bit more progress against the larger Illinois side. We began to win scrummages and improve our advantage in lineouts. There was a slight shift in the play in the favor of AF. In the 39th minute of the 40 minute period, AF finally scored when our number 8, C3C Les Kastrop made an aggressive run to score a try. With no points from the kick, the half ended, Illinois 15, AF 5.
In the second half, AF finally had the slight wind and continued to pressure Illinois. At just under six minutes of play, C1C Nikki Hamilton-Brown scored a try after a series or crashing runs by the AF forwards. Again, the kick failed. AF continued to play strong, but the Illinois defense was solid. Illinois made a couple of great goal line stands, but at just under 38 minutes AF winger, C1C Nikki Hamilton-Brown scored on a great run to tie the game, 15 all. With less than three minutes (including injury time), C3C Bre McNair setup for a kick that could break the tie. It was a kick that had to address a cross-wind and a sharp angle to the uprights. She lined up, took her time, then made a kick that split the uprights. AF 17, Illinois 15. Despite a strong push by Illinois, the AF defense and counter attacks ended the game.
2003 US National Women's Collegiate Rugby Champions-Air Force, back-to-back champions!!!!!
Another "win" for the team was the selection of C3C Les Kastrop as the Final Four Tournaments MVP. Given the great teams and players from Penn State, Illinois, and UC-San Diego, this honor was especially significant for Les and the terrific performance she had in these two games.
Last year I wrote of how we used almost the same 15 players for the Sweet 16's and Final Four matches. With the two ten minute overtime periods, that's 340 minutes of rugby w/ no injuries.
That coupled with a last year's starting lineup of 3 freshman and 5 sophmores speaks to the youth of last years national champions.
This year it's a different story. I'd highlight a team that overcame injury after injury. We lost one of our firstie starters at Westerns (the qualifying event for Sweet 16's) to a knee injury. Another firstie played the final four games with knees that required icing after each match; that and she played w/ part of today's game w/ what looks like a broken wrist. Two of our backs spent the last two weeks recovering from sprained ankles so their practices with the team were limited (although with taping they played well during these two matches). Last week we lost our All-American scrum half to a torn ACL and were forced to go w/ a back-up three degree who really hadn't played this key position in a game since last fall. After Saturday's game, our All-American fly half would play the championship game w/ a sprained ankle that was heavily taped. At warm-up for today's game one of our starting second row players would turn her ankle and require icing and taping to get through the match. Our tallest, heaviest, and strongest player hurt her shoulder two weeks ago and would spend the two weeks between the Sweet 16's and this weekend's tournament in a sling. She was cleared to play this weekend and thanks to instructions from the cadet clinic trainers, we did a great tape job on her shoulder that let her play one half of the two games this weekend.
Bottom line, these girls played through a lot of pain and adversity, and did it all with a tremendous amount of style and grace.
