Losses are always difficult to stomach. Season-ending defeats are even tougher. Thus, words can hardly describe the feelings of a women’s rugby team whose dreams of reaching the sweet sixteen came to an abrupt end due to a crucial seeding error.
In the third weekend of January, as the team was traveling to an invitational tournament at Stanford, it was abruptly notified by the Pacific Coast Rugby Football Union (PCRFU) that, for the first time ever, there would be a pre-regional tournament to determine which teams moved on to the regional finals. The Dirty Ducks’ primary league, the Pacific Northwest Rugby Football Union (PNRFU) had failed to notify the team of these circumstances. The Dirty Ducks were caught off-guard.
“The issue with this was (that) we were already going to be missing players due to prearranged spring break trips,” said head coach Greg Farrell. “The dates of the play-in were on our finals week here, as well as other schools, and we had had quite a scramble trying to get finals in for all players since we also had to spend all of Thursday traveling.”
Given that the Dirty Ducks were the number-one ranked team in the PNRFU, they were set to face off with the University of California at Davis, the fourth-ranked team from the Northern California Rugby Football Union (NCRFU).
Or so they thought.
It turned out that they had been paired with Chico State, the third ranked team in the NCRFU. BYU, the number-one team from the Utah Rugby Football Union (URFU), would play Davis. Sensing a miscue, head coach Greg Farrell contacted a PCRFU official. All he was told, however, was to look at seedings online. It seemed that the league had no explanation for Farrell’s misgivings.
Still, the Dirty Ducks did travel to Chico on March 20 to play the Wildcats. A win would send them to the regional finals, while a loss would effectively end their season. The Wildcats hung on for a 19-7 win, and the Dirty Ducks were eliminated.
Meanwhile, BYU easily defeated the overmatched UC Davis Aggies in the opening round and eventually lost to the Wildcats. However, because it had won its opening game against the Aggies, BYU would move on to the regional finals.
The Dirty Ducks closed the tournament against the Aggies on March 21, intent to prove they had been robbed of a chance to advance. After a convincing 31-10 victory, it was abundantly clear that if the Dirty Ducks been seeded correctly in the first round and played Davis, they would have earned a trip to regionals.
Point differentials during the tournament also favored the Dirty Ducks. Oregon outscored opponents in the tournament by a margin of 38-29, while BYU totaled only 32 points to their opponents’ 27. Given that the two teams had the same record (1-1) during the tournament, statistics show that despite the seeding error, the Dirty Ducks played better than BYU throughout the tournament. Still, BYU moved on and the Dirty Ducks were left to wonder how their season had ended so quickly. Ironically, Oregon moved up in the national rankings following the tournament, from 13th to 10th.
“We were 10th in the nation, and we didn’t even get a chance to play in regionals to go to the sweet sixteen,” said senior coordinator Jenn Greenspan.
For a team with 15 graduating seniors, it has been very difficult to let go of what could have been.
“I feel like this is the year we really could have been the underdog and done well at nationals,” said Greenspan. “We practiced or played six days a week for something that ended up being out of our hands.”
“It killed me to see this happen to the girls,” said Farrell. “We had a hell of a team this year and they were really dedicated.”
Tournament officials did eventually acknowledge their mistake to Farrell, and he has since received $500 from the PNRFU to reimburse the team for their trip to Chico. Additionally, the PCRFU President Frank Merrill promised that if there had been a mistake, the Dirty Ducks would automatically be given the number one seed in next year’s pre-regional tournament.
Unfortunately, the leagues could not provide the one thing every last player on the team wanted: another chance.
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