Photos: Jackie Finlan
Fresno State fulfilled expectations and repeated as the DII West Coast conference champion, defeating UN Reno 78-17 in Saturday’s final. Both teams will report to Stanford University on April 21-22 for the DII spring regional championships.
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UN Reno boasted some power and size, and used those attributes to turnover Fresno State’s rucks early in the game. No. 8 Anna DuBois was very effective in this regard and caused problems all day. But after losing possession twice, the Bulldogs started adding more players to the breakdown to better secure the ball.
“Reno came out really strong. They packed all their big forwards on us, so it was a little uneasy at the beginning with us,” Fresno State coach Amber Cluff said. “We just had to make the adjustment right away, and they did a really good job recognizing on their own that they had to put more people in. … A strength for us is adapting to the situation.”
Another strength is the team’s connectivity in open play, and the work between scrumhalf Raquel Macias, flyhalf Jenna Balestra and championship MVP Moriah Halteman at inside center is particularly entertaining. They flow off each other really well, in spite of the positional changes. Halteman tore her ACL at last year’s spring regionals, and Macias moved from wing to scrumhalf to make the position her own. When Halteman returned from injury, she slotted into the 12 spot, and Balestra, who is tough to stop when she takes the pass with pace, unites the two.
Fresno State took a 22-0 lead in fewer than 20 minutes, as outside center Jacklyn Blankenship (4T), who has really risen her game this year, Halteman (4T) and Macias all scored, and fullback Regan Garner kicked the conversion. UN Reno then got on the board with a Kalia Hurley try, and flyhalf Rachel Aldax converted the lock’s score. The try-trading continued until halftime, and UN Reno fullback Taylor Tito and scrumhalf Mallory Waldeck matched Fresno State’s two additional tries.
“We went into halftime up 32-17 and knew that wasn’t the end of the game,” Fresno State coach Barry Foley said. “During the break, we said: Let’s start over.”
“I think Reno was a little gassed. They gave it their all in that first half and I think maybe that was the difference in the second half,” Cluff added. “We were able to hold them at 17 and that was what we were looking for.”
Fresno State went back to work and added No. 8 Megan Walls, Balestra, flanker Megan Oleski and wing Alexys Gonzalez to the box score. Both teams worked their benches as the point differential widened.
“We have a good core group of experienced girls,” Cluff noted the nine returners from the 2017 playoffs, “but the main thing for us is depth. In the fall we had about 30 rookies come out. We went to rookie tournaments, played scrimmages, and we lost almost every game that we played. But they got so much experience from that. And then when we put them out there with our experienced team – it was a little sketchy in the beginning – it took about a half for them to start clicking. But from then on out, they’ve just gotten stronger.”
There are many first-years in the pack, and they’re all big contributors. Flankers Megan Oleski and Le Claire Franco, as well as prop Vanessa Maravilla, who joined late last year, played very well in a conference final. Newcomers with meaningful minutes behind them help Fresno State return to the spring regional championship in a better position than last year. In 2017, the Bulldogs’ fortune turned after a short travel roster couldn’t accommodate a couple of key injuries. This year, there are options should a similar scenario arise.
“The feeling that everyone had was: This isn’t how it should have ended,” Cluff reflected on the 2017 spring quarterfinal loss to now-DI Grand Canyon. “That happens; it’s rugby. You get injuries and you have to regroup. We didn’t have the support and depth then, but if something happened today, everyone feels like we could move on and advance no matter who went down.”
Fresno State will play Gold Coast #3 UC Irvine on Saturday, April 21, but it’s really a spring quarterfinal. Both teams have a first-round bye, and the winner will advance to the spring final four in May in Fullerton, Calif. UN Reno is competing in a full pool of four, also at Stanford. The Wolfpack will play Gold Coast #2 Long Beach State on April 21, and the victor will play the winner of Claremont vs. Sacramento State in Sunday’s spring quarterfinal.