After facing Davenport University (DU), the Golden Rams will head to semifinals on Nov. 13 in an away match. If successful, the team will move on to the championship game against the other semifinal winner.
American International College (AIC) will play Queens University of Charlotte (QUC) for the other semifinal match. The winner will advance to the final against the winner of WCU and DU’s semifinal match.
QUC finished first and WCU finished second in the south conference. DU finished first and AIC finished second in the north conference.
The Golden Rams will travel to Grand Rapids, Michigan the day before the match and travel back after.
The regular season match-up between Davenport and the Golden Rams this past Friday was canceled due to the semifinal being between the two. The teams mutually decided to cancel the match to avoid playing two weekends in a row.
DU has a 2–0 division record with two wins against AIC and the University of New Haven (UNH) (118-0).
Earlier this season, Davenport defeated AIC 22–19 in a close match. The Golden Rams fell to AIC 59–10 on Oct. 28.
“I’m excited to see all the improvement we’ve made since last game,” sophomore Sara McNicholas said.
WCU has a 2–2 division record this season with wins against UNH (66–0) and Lander University (48-–7). They lost to AIC and QUC (0–20).
This match-up has been long anticipated by the Golden Rams and has been their main focus during practice.
“The next day when we looked over the film, we thoroughly went through and discussed things we can do better,” junior Ellie O’Mara. “We want to be ready to take on Davenport.”
This game is huge for the Golden Rams, this could be their final game.
“I’m a little nervous but I feel like as long as we practice hard, focus and play our game we can win,” senior Anne Kelekolio said.
The Golden Rams have appeared in the last two championships in 2019 and 2021. The 2020 championship did not happen due to COVID-19. They won in 2019 and fell in 2021 to AIC.
The last time Davenport and WCU played, was during the spring 2021 7s seasons where the Golden Rams fell 29–22. Davenport did not play against WCU last fall 15s season and spring 7s season.
The team was upset after losing to rival AIC and is looking to take that motivation into the match against Davenport.
“During that loss, everyone was really upset but we channeled that,” O’Mara said. “We had a great conversation after the game about our mistakes.”
The game will be at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 13.
Ty Hickey is a second-year media and culture major minoring in Chinese.