San Diego at Sunsplash 7s /// Photos: Paul Rudman / KLC fotos
San Diego secured its berth to the Women’s Club 7s National Championship, winning both Pacific South qualifiers, the second of which occurred Saturday at Sunsplash 7s. The Surfers make their seventh consecutive appearance at nationals, where the SoCal side boasts a 28-7-2 all-time record and two championship titles (2012, 2014).
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“I spent some time thinking about my responsibility to manage players and playing time throughout the tournament. I also spent some time reflecting on what I could have done to better prepare the team,” San Diego 7s coach Liz Strohecker summarized the lessons gleaned from last year’s nationals, where the Surfers finished fifth. “As a player there is a tendency to think about the one thing that could’ve been done differently to change the outcome of the game. But as a coach I’ve found there’s a much larger picture to look at and study. Every season is different, and with only three players returning, it has been a very different summer, but hopefully some of the lessons from last year have come through this year.”
Co-captains Tia Blythe and Josie Ziluca and UCSD local Alex Beckett are the returners, and they help Strohecker lead a squad that can swell into the mid-30s on training days. Both Blythe and Ziluca were seen with the WPL All-Stars in the July 1 match against the USA Women’s National Team. Blythe has competed with the USA Falcons in Las Vegas and Okinawa this year, and Ziluca coached the Atlantis U18s to a runner-up finish at the Paris World Games earlier this month.
“We have a lot of different levels of experience on the team; we have a couple Eagles, we have a few players who are new to 7s, we have a couple college players,” Strohecker surveyed the squad. “Our most experienced players have been really great about teaching the newer players though, and that has created a really great environment.”
Eagles like Megan Foster (pictured) and Kelsi Stockert have booted up with the Surfers this summer, and their insight is no doubt valuable given their recent experience on the 7s and 15s international stages.
San Diego has played in a few local tournaments and has seen mostly the same teams. Tempe and Santa Barbara Academy were the other two teams competing for a seed to nationals, and both finished second to San Diego in different SoCal qualifiers. The tie-breaker awarded the second Pacific South seed to the Ninjas, but the first-year academy led by Kevin Battle intends to make an impact. The women’s programs has its players in the gym three mornings per week and on the pitch four nights per week, with the goal of readying members for the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center. More to come shortly.
“The game of 7s is very unforgiving, and we learned that this weekend when we tied with Tempe in pool play. We had beaten them in the first qualifier of the season pretty handedly, but they came back at us on Saturday and really made us fight,” the coach reflected.
“Our toughest competition so far has been Berkeley,” Strohecker added. “They were kind enough to travel to us at the beginning of July. Berkeley is always tough competition for us, so it was a really great learning experience for some of the newer girls.”
San Diego will play two more tournaments before nationals in Minneapolis, giving the final 12 players an opportunity to iron everything out before the championship. The Surfers will compete in Pool C alongside Red River champion American Rugby Pro Training Center, Atlantic North runner-up Beantown and South runner-up, which will be determined this weekend in Atlanta.
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