Davis prop Brenda Erickson /// See more photos. •
For better or worse, spring 2016 will be a collegiate season not soon forgotten. From shocking upsets, to championship withdrawals, to Cinderella stories, the first of half of 2016 will influence competition adjustments in the near future. Our College Game of the Spring ended up being more interesting than the controversy that surrounded it. UC Davis and UVA, although pained to have the opportunity for a national championship stripped from them, treated fans to a fast, clean, heated DI title match.
There were many candidates for College Game of the Spring: Nothing-to-lose Tulane’s DII spring championship win over West Coast dominator Humboldt; DIII Fresno State’s Round of 16 win over then-reigning DII spring champ UC Riverside; the first DI Elite final between Penn State and BYU; and many, many more. Coincidentally, all of these high-pressure games were preceded by some form of drama, but none so big as the elimination of the 2015-16 DI national championship.
To relive the fallout would be exhausting, but read more for DI fall champion UCONN’s case for withdrawing, and for UC Davis’ response. This information hit right before regional playoffs. Just as players were ramping up for the post-season, they began mourning its abbreviation.
The 2015-16 DI national championship was supposed to be special, too. With the creation of the varsity championship in the fall and DI Elite in the spring, a new DI champion was going to be crowned.
UC Davis won the West, while UVA won the East, both convincingly. The DI spring final was rescheduled so it could be featured alongside the four other college national championships at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, Calif. The game was slated for 5 p.m., the last of the day, and it turned out to be the most thrilling of the all the games contested that Saturday.
Two evenly paired teams that boasted comparable size, speed and design traded leads, breakaways and last-gap tackles, and the play-by-play recap certainly deserves the read. Davis trailed UVA for the majority of the game, but played its gutsiest 15 minutes of the year during its last 15 minutes of the 15s season. Davis forwards captain Caroline Sequeira tied the game 25-all with about six minutes remaining.
As regulation expired and minds shifted toward overtime strategies, MVP Erica Hipp hit a half-gap in UVA’s end, cut across the flow of play, and outraced her pursuers for the game-winner, 30-25.
It was a memorable championship for all the right reasons.