Last Saturday kicked off five-straight weekends of various playoffs and championships for College Rugby Association of America (CRAA) women’s 15s teams. The organizing body has not circulated any information on the women’s DIA, DI and DII events, so these updates attempt to fill that silence. [lead photo: Alex Ho @hoiho_photo]

Key Dates

March 22
DI Pacific Mountain playoffs @ Stanford

March 29
DII West Coast championship @ San Jose State

April 4-6
DI QFs & SFs @ Tempe, Ariz.
DII Pacific Desert final (April 5)

April 12
DIA semifinals @ higher seed

April 18-19 @ Stanford
DII SFs & final
DI final
DIA national championship

DIVISION 1A (DIA)

This competition has been pretty self sufficient. There are just four competitive teams this year, and so it is incredibly easy to follow. All four will advance to the April 12 semifinals, and then finalists will report to Stanford University for the national championship. The DIA coaches themselves confirmed that Palo Alto was the location for not only the DIA final, but also the DI and DII title matches.

Saturday, March 29 is the final round for the regular season. Life is undefeated and hosts Lindenwood, whose only loss came to the Running Eagles earlier this month, 29-24. Regardless of what happens this Saturday, both teams have secured home-field advantage for the April 12 semifinals. Also this Saturday is the BYU vs. Central Washington rematch in Ellensburg. The first game went 53-24 to the Wildcats, and now Central is playing at home.

DIVISION I

The Pacific Mountain held playoffs between the top-two teams in the North (aka, Pacific Northwest) and top-two teams in South (aka, NorCal). Saturday began with the 3rd place game, and South #2 Cal beat North #2 Oregon 47-7. Check out Alex Ho’s photos.

The championship followed, and South #1 Stanford shut out North #1 Western Washington 79-0. See Oscar Hugo Lopez Velasquez’s photos. The Pacific Mountain final standings:

1. Stanford
2. Western Washington
3. Cal
4. Oregon

The next stage of playoffs are the CRAA quarterfinals (April 4) and semifinals (April 6) in Tempe, Ariz., and the four Pacific Mountain teams were afforded were berths (read more). But at least one team has declined its berth to Arizona, as the playoff location was not disclosed to teams until March 14 — i.e., three weeks before kickoff. So TBD on what the rounds of 8/4 will look like. Again, CRAA is the organization in charge and should be announce details.

The Pacific Desert conference has one more week of regular-season play (see the standings) and was originally slated three berths to CRAA quarterfinals. Grand Canyon is 6-0 after its 86-7 win against San Diego State, and Arizona State (5-1) held onto second place in the standings with a 15-13 rivalry win against the Univ. Arizona. The win was determined on a game-ending penalty kick from inside center Naomi Stietzel.

The big game now is this Saturday’s Arizona vs. Claremont Colleges. If the Foxes (5th place, 19 standings points) win, then they’ll leapfrog over UC San Diego (currently 4th, 20 pts.) and potentially over Arizona (currently 3rd, 21 pts.), depending on the bonus-points situation. If Arizona wins, then it’ll secure its spot in the CRAA quarterfinals, and the best Claremont could finish is fourth. The game occurs in SoCal. Meanwhile, Grand Canyon and ASU play on Saturday, too — no doubt a good tuneup for both teams as well as a gauge heading into regional playoffs.

DIVISION II

The West Coast Women’s Rugby Conference holds its championship this Saturday on the San Jose State University campus. The league will name both 10s and 15s champions. The day begins at 9 a.m. with back-to-back 10s games, and the second round kicks off at 12:30 p.m. For the 15s division:

11 a.m. 3rd Place
UC Santa Cruz vs. UN Reno

1:30 p.m. Championship
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo vs. Santa Clara Univ.

West Coast commission Tiff Lopez indicated that the league gets two spots to CRAA semifinals on Friday, April 18 in Stanford.

The Pacific Desert Rugby Conference (PDRC) game that we’ve been waiting for — UC Irvine vs. Long Beach State — has been scheduled for April 5. Both teams are 5-0 and so this final regular-season match will act like a league championship. PDRC DII Competitions Chair Evan Wollen indicated that the conference gets one seed to the CRAA DII semifinals on Friday, April 18, so next week’s match will provide a trip to Palo Alto, Calif.