[Editor’s note: Don’t be confused by the photos: Evidently both teams’ kit weren’t ready for game day, so they’re wearing Life West’s two sets of jerseys.]
The Colorado Gray Wolves played its first official match on Sept. 11, traveling to San Francisco to take on another new entity, the California Grizzlies. There was just one lead change during the entire match, and it occurred on the final play of the game, affording the Gray Wolves a 26-24 win.
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“It was nice to get everyone sitting in the space and to see everyone looking left, looking right, making sure we were all on the same page,” Colorado Gray Wolves captain Kelsie O’Brien said. “Yeah, it did feel like old times. It was nice to get back on the field again. I think everyone was very grateful for today.”
The first quarter was a lot of testing each other, although play did stay in Colorado’s end for the most part.
“We thought our first 20 minutes was really strong, both on attack and defense, and then we started to drop off a little bit,” scrumhalf O’Brien said. “Rolling into this season it’s been a minute since all of us have played together. About a year-and-a-half since we’ve been out as a squad. And it when it comes to fitness and really knowing each other, we’re going to really hit it at practice and hopefully have a stronger-than-20-minute showing in our first half, the next time we get to play.”
Bulou Mataitoga and Lin scored tries in the second quarter, and Kristen Siano added a conversion for the 12-0 lead into the break.
“We had three major goals today,” O’Brien recapped the halftime conversation. We wanted to be a possession-drive team – so, taking care of the ball at the breakdown. We wanted to hold our depth on attack and really put people into space, and then we also wanted to nominate our hit on defense and really shut down their offload options. So we talked about that quite a bit. Trying to make sure they didn’t get the ball around the edge on us because they did a very good job of that in the first half.”
KB Broughton with the pressure defense / Photo: Alex Ho
Shortly after the teams returned to the pitch, Grizzlies captain and No. 8 Nicole Strasko picked off the back of the scrum for the close-range try: 19-0 with Olivia Bernadel Huey’s conversion.
The Gray Wolves started to build some flow, working phases from sideline to sideline, and eventually put reserve Madison Slaught into the corner for the try, 19-5. Mataitoga added another score – which evolved after a nice carry and offload from Rachel Pau’u to Hope Rogers Dellermann – to push the home team’s lead to 24-5.
Elements of Colorado’s game started to come together better. Notably, the Gray Wolves weren’t retreating in the scrum anymore – arguably the biggest work-on from the first half. The Grizzlies had some trouble in their kick coverage and flyhalf McKenzie Hawkins kept the pressure on with a smart kicking game.
McKenzie Hawkins over Rosie Russell (l) and Sam Els (r) / Photo: Alex Ho
The next three scores were all breakaways from deep in Colorado’s end. Reserve Colleen Cribbs took the pitch, broke the line and finished a long try, which Hawkins converted, 24-12.
“We were very proud of our bench coming on and we talked about that after the game,” O’Brien said. “They came on and it was pretty seamless. … [W]e were very excited to just be able to move people in and out. We have a pretty balanced skill set, which is good.”
It looked like Broughton, who is such a menace on the sideline, was building toward a try, but there was some confusion about the taped lines on the pitch. Instead, Grizzlies teenager Leila Opeti tore away, negating all of that good territory the Gray Wolves had earned. The wing linked with center Pau’u, who had a very good day, and the phases followed. But then Hawkins returned the favor, stepping into the passing lane to intercept a flat pass. The flyhalf sprinted into open territory and outran the chase for the centered try and conversion: 24-19.
Rachel Ehrecke offloads out of Hope Rogers Dellermann tackle / Photo: Alex Ho
“We started to feel a bit of electricity,” O’Brien said. “[B]oth Rachel Ehrecke and I as captains had said, ‘We are scoring and we’re going to bring the score back up to a thin-line game.’ Both of us were paying so much attention to what was going on on the field that we weren’t even aware how close the score was, so we were ready to go for another phase and hit that ball up the field again. We were very much feeling the excitement build once we started to see players being put into space.”
When the teams reset for the restart, it marked the final play of the game. The Gray Wolves received the ball and then the Grizzlies intercepted it. That would have been game if the ball was kicked to touch, but the ball went to ground. When heads pulled out of the ruck, they saw Ehrecke curling around the breakdown with the ball. The steal moved to center Julie Tordonato, who broke the line and had the gas to outrun the pursuit. Hawkins slotted the centered try for the 26-24 lead, and then the whistle sounded.
“I thought Julie Tordonato did an amazing job,” O’Brien said of standout performances. “I thought KB had a really good showing at the wing and then we had a really great try-saving tackle from Sam Sullivan, which was fantastic. So I was very proud of our backs.”
One of Sam Sullivan’s try-saving tackle / Photo: Alex Ho
Sullivan was really key on defense and not only cleaned up line-breaks but was good in the backfield, fielding kicks and returning with conviction.
“I’ll speak for myself and for a couple other players that it didn’t really feel like a win for us,” O’Brien tempered the enthusiasm around a comeback victory. “We really want to show our skills as a team in a much more demonstrative fashion. And I think that we can do that; we just need a bit more time to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Today was a good day to know that we have the talent in a bunch of different places. We just need to start fusing it together.”
The Gray Wolves will have that opportunity to do against fellow WPL teams Chicago North Shore and Berkeley, as well as DI Elite Lindenwood University and DI Chicago Lions, Austin and Denver Black Ice.