Natasha Opoku / J Dalton Photography (see more)
Grand Canyon University surprised everyone last year and has the potential to do the same in its sophomore season. In spring 2017, the Lopes celebrated its first 15s season with a third-place finish at the DII College Spring Championship. Newly promoted Grand Canyon has now banked its first Division I win, defeating Arizona 81-12 last Saturday.
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Grand Canyon captain Jasmine Fifer indicated that the team wasn’t exactly consulted on whether it wanted to compete in Division I, but that players were willing to take on any competition. Fortunately, the Lopes returned its entire starting lineup from spring 2017 and carry that special bond that forms during a program’s first season. The team gained eight recruits, including one newcomer who brings experience from the Kent Crusaders in Washington.
“The team is a little bit stronger than last year because we’ve all been playing together for a year,” Fifer said. “And then also everyone that comes out is always so eager to learn more and try new things, which is great to have on the team.”
Grand Canyon tested the Division I scene in the fall, traveling to SoCal for the Scrum by the Sea. The Lopes won the whole tournament.
“Yes, that helped our confidence,” Fifer said of the pre-season tournament title. “We always underestimate ourselves – that other teams are going to be faster, better – and playing them, we learned what we needed to work on.
“Fitness. It’s still one of our weaknesses,” the captain elaborated on the lessons learned. “Another thing was speed. Now that we moved up to DI, a lot of the teams are faster getting the ball out and across the field. We didn’t come across that much in DII and have to work on our defense.”
But it was the offense that got to work on Saturday, as Grand Canyon posted a 69-point win over the Wildcats. Fifer pointed to Natasha Opoku for a standout performance, and the wing accounted for two tries and two conversions. Arisbel Gonzalez (3), Kaley Lightfoot, Jaime Massey, Fifer, Sarah Lawson (2), Erin Eschbach (T, C), Julian White, Bijan Ross and Temprist Smith (2) also scored tries.
“The score says one thing but in our opinion, the way we played was not our best,” Fifer critiqued. “It was a sloppy game and we thought we could’ve done better in the little mistakes we made as a team. We just need to clean that up.
“Our goals as a team have stayed the same for the most part. Now it’s about having a higher work rate,” Fifer added. “We’re behind on skills and knowledge and experience, and have to work 10 times harder just to catch up and learn the game and keep updated with changes. But our goal is play every game full-out.”
Grand Canyon heads to CSU Northridge (1-1) this weekend, and Fifer is looking forward to both that game and the Feb. 24 match against UC San Diego – they were the only Gold Coast teams the Lopes didn’t play at Scrum by the Sea.
In other conference news, UC Santa Barbara improved to 3-0 after a 60-33 win over CSU Northridge, and UCLA got its first win of the season with a 38-14 victory over UC San Diego.