USA Ultimate

Oregon Fugue wins the 2015 D-I College Women's Championship over Stanford Superfly. The title is the team's third in the last six years. Related Links: Event Website Event Guide (PDF) Men's Division Scoreboard Women's Division Scoreboard #d1natties

Oregon Fugue wins the 2015 USA Ultimate Division I Women’s College Championship with a 13-11 victory over Stanford Superfly.

On the back of great defense, Oregon wins the championship.

With wind gusts of 20+mph and light rain, and in front of a large crowd of fans, Oregon Fugue and Stanford Superfly played a fantastic game of ultimate in the championship finals. Though it was Oregon who eventually won the title by a score of 13-11, both teams played phenomenally well and, throughout the game, there was no clear favorite. Oregon entered the finals hoping to avenge a championship-game loss to Ohio State Fever from last season, with new faces leading their team. On the other side, Stanford Superfly hoped to add to their impressive seven championships in 12 finals appearances since 1995.

The first half of the game was extremely intense while each team worked out how to deal with the gusting wind. On almost every point, the squads traded turnovers as each looked downfield for scoring opportunities that didn’t always work out. For Oregon, the defense of Jesse Shofner and Hayley Wahlroos stood out during these points, with both Shofner and Wahlroos coming up with big defensive blocks on Stanford tries to the end zone. But with Monisha White and Stephanie Lim handling the disc for Superfly, and Michela Meister and Courtney Gegg coming up with enormous catches, those defensive blocks often ended up in vain for Oregon. In general during the first half, it was Oregon that looked to be more comfortable going upwind, but the marks set by Stanford and their zone defense taking away a lot of space, helped Stanford claw to an 8-7 halftime lead.

Fugue started the second half on quite the run, though, scoring three straight points. Their offense was able to find cutters in open spaces over the Stanford zone, and at least at first, take advantage of a new-look offense from Stanford wasn’t always clicking. The Stanford offense had up to three cutters stretching deep on the field while the handlers moved the disc amongst themselves in the short open spaces up field. The offense starting clicking late and brought the score to 11-10 (in Oregon’s favor), with the game capped at 13. Two execution decisions propelled Fugue to the championship. The first was their end-zone defense – on those final points Stanford had a couple of chances to score, and bring the game to double-game point, but they were unable, thanks to the tight team defense Oregon played. The second was their cutting, which as mentioned previously, opened up Fugue throwing options downfield that Stanford was simply not able to control. Olivia Bartuff played extraordinarily well throughout the game, but in particular, during the last two points, including a score to bring the game to 12-10 Oregon.

In the end, Oregon Fugue captured their third title in six years. Both teams played an incredible game, capping off an amazing 2015 campaign.

Congratulations to both teams on their seasons and to Oregon Fugue on their championship!

All-Tournament Starting Seven

• Olivia Bartuff, Oregon Fugue

• Bethany Kaylor, Oregon Fugue

• Jesse Shofner, Oregon Fugue

• Monisha White, Stanford Superfly

• Michela Meister, Stanford Superfly

• Stephanie Lim, Stanford Superfly

• Lucia Childs-Walker, Carleton College Syzygy

Including the women from Oregon and Stanford in this list should be no surprise. Even if you were only able to tune in for the finals, their presence was felt every time they stepped on the field. Stanford’s Monisha White and Oregon’s Jesse Shofner were noticeable throughout the entire tournament, but especially in the finals. Lucia Childs-Walker helped elevate the sixth overall seed, Carleton Syzygy, to the semifinals and was second at the tournament in assists with 24. She was one of many key contributors on a robust Carleton roster.

Shout out to Nhi Nguyen of Colorado Kali as well. Even though she was quietly in a lot of pain throughout the weekend, she was always a threat on the field and helped lead Colorado to their quarterfinals appearance.
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You can watch the 2015 women’s championship game, as well as the both semifinal match ups, in their entirety on ESPN3 at watchespn.com.

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