There are a few moving parts in Northern California, which is home to the reigning DI club champion and DII runner-up. Life West has built a more competitive schedule that includes a handful of NorCal games and also entered a second side into the DII league. Division II has five teams, including newcomer Santa Rosa. Colusa and San Jose are in the developmental segment, and all three groups will cross over for non-league matches to support each other.
A couple of exhibition games occurred Saturday, as Life West handled San Francisco Golden Gate, and Santa Rosa topped Colusa 29-10. In Division II, Sacramento defeated Berkeley 59-5 and is feeling good about a post-season push this year. The Amazons advanced to the 2015 DII national championship, falling 10 points short of Wisconsin, and then dipped the subsequent two years.
“I’ve done quite a bit of analyzing on those two years, only because we went from such a high to struggling to get enough players on the field,” Sacramento president Elizabeth Danielson explained.
Danielson reflected on the team’s roots. The club formed in 2001 in response to the very successful high school program, and the senior Amazons kept those young, local athletes in the game.
“My theory is that with the increase in collegiate rugby scholarships/academic opportunities and the success of the high school team, that constant flow of athletes started to trickle down to a few players a year because athletes were getting recruited from the high school team,” Danielson surmised.
The average age of the team started to increase, especially in the previous two years, and the NorCal league experienced its own fluctuations, most notably the introduction of Life West.
“Ultimately, I don’t think of the last two years as a rebuilding era. I see them as restructuring years where we had to incorporate the way our team was previously run with new and fresh ideas and players,” Danielson concluded. “In my opinion, this is our year to take the national championship title.”
Sacramento has good numbers this year, and Danielson credited fellow members of the leadership group – captain Leka Green, Tonya Wessman, Caroline Sequeira, Anysia Avila – with the boom. The majority has collegiate or elite high school experience from teams like Chico State, UC Davis, Humboldt, Sacramento State and the high school Amazons. On Saturday, the Amazons put up 11 tries on Berkeley, allowing one score against.
“Honestly it was our first game all together and it was the team effort that made the difference,” Danielson reflected on the season-opening win. “I can count on one hand the number of times someone ran without support. Our backs take ownership of their game play and the forwards protect the ball at any cost. It was remarkable yesterday that what we have been practicing came together so well.”
Danielson pointed to Wessman, Sequeira and Meredith Conrad-Forrest as forwards to watch this season, and Kiana Saffings, Sarona Scott, Diana Nguyen and Ofolangi Mailangi as influential backs.
“In my opinion it was Kiana Saffings that had a standout game, scoring four tries with her amazing field awareness, ability to read the defenders, and movement through any given gaps,” Danielson considered MVPs.
The DII NorCal league will proceed through March 31, followed by the playoffs, where Sacramento hopes to be.