D.C. Divas Rematch With Dallas Elite For 2016 National Championship
Neal Rozendaal
Washington, DC – The Dallas Elite are looking for redemption. The D.C. Divas are seeking a repeat.
And the only way to settle the matter is with a rematch.
For the first time in the history of the Women’s Football Alliance (WFA), the national championship will feature the same two contestants as the year before, with the D.C. Divas squaring off against the Dallas Elite in Pittsburgh Saturday for the 2016 WFA title. The Divas will attempt to become the first team in WFA history to repeat as national champions, but they’ll enter the title game as ten-point underdogs against the top-ranked and undefeated Elite, who are looking to bring the national title back to Dallas for the first time since 2008.
The Divas (9-1) earned their spot in the championship by winning the Eastern Conference title on July 9 over the Boston Renegades, 47-21. Divas head coach Alison Fischer was happy with her team’s performance and how they bounced back from a subpar showing in their previous playoff game.
“I thought we had a much, much better effort on both sides of the ball against Boston. I thought it was a step in the right direction,” Coach Fischer said. “Boston’s an outstanding team, and we knew we’d have our hands full. I thought we got off to a slow start again in the first half, but we responded with a very strong second half, which I was very pleased to see.”
“The offense moved the ball very well, scoring on seven of our first eight drives,” Fischer continued. “We got off to a bit of a slow start on defense and gave up two early touchdowns, but then we really settled in and played much better on that side of the ball for the rest of the game. We made the big defensive stops when we had to, and we also got a few turnovers, which was very important. It was just great to get the win and be able to move on.”
The win over Boston secured the Divas’ fourth conference championship in team history. The Divas also claimed consecutive Eastern Conference titles for the first time in the 16-year history of the franchise, an achievement that did not escape Coach Fischer.
“It’s very tough to get back to the national championship game. We knew it would be hard, especially with the schedule we had,” Fischer noted. “It is a tremendous accomplishment, but that was our goal coming into the season: trying to win another championship. That’s where we set our sights. It’s a great feeling to get that conference title, but our job’s not finished. As we’ve done all season, we’re taking this one game at a time, and next up is the championship game against Dallas.”
With the conference title in hand, the D.C. Divas will face the Western Conference champion Dallas Elite (10-0) for the 2016 WFA national championship. The Divas and Elite have met twice previously. The Divas defeated Dallas last year in Los Angeles, 30-26, to win the 2015 WFA national championship. But the Elite got a measure of revenge this season, traveling to D.C. in April and using a strong second-half effort to blow out the Divas by three touchdowns, 40-19.
Dallas and D.C. share a heated rivalry in the NFL, and Coach Fischer is starting to see the same competitiveness develop on the women’s side of the game. “Dallas is a great team, obviously,” Coach Fischer said. “Our first two games against them were terrific, competitive contests. This is our second time facing them in the national title game, and it obviously starts to turn into a rivalry when two teams face off repeatedly this late in the playoffs. I expect this to be another fantastic game for the fans.”
The first two games between the Divas and the Elite have been a tale of two halves. In the first halves of the two games combined, the Divas have outscored Dallas, 40-12, and the Divas have led by two touchdowns at halftime in both previous meetings. Dallas has dominated the second halves of both games, however, outscoring the Divas after intermission, 54-9. The Divas held off a furious rally from Dallas in their first meeting to win the 2015 championship, but Dallas stormed past the Divas in the second half for a lopsided victory this year.
While the Dallas coaches are undoubtedly preaching to their players the importance of a faster start, Fischer and the Divas coaching staff are trying to solve their second-half woes against the Elite. “Our poor second-half performances are something we’re very aware of,” Coach Fischer noted. “Dallas has been a great second-half team against us. We haven’t played with the same efficiency in the second half against them that we’ve shown in the first half, and our challenge is to get our team to finish strong and play a complete sixty-minute game.”
A large part of the Divas’ second-half struggles are undoubtedly due to the blazing speed of Dallas’ skill position players combined with their size and strength on the line. “Everyone knows that Dallas has a lot of speed in the backfield,” Fischer observed. “It’s a challenge to try to contain that and limit their big plays on offense. But Dallas also has quite a bit of size up front on their line, too. They have a great combination of size and speed, and it can wear you down if you’re not careful.”
Dallas’ explosive offense was on full display in their victory over the Divas earlier this season. Elite quarterback Jessica Gerhart completed a 47-yard touchdown pass to Erika Bobo to give Dallas the lead for good in that game, and Elite co-owner, head coach, and star running back Odessa Jenkins finished the scoring with a 57-yard run to salt the game away.
Limiting those types of big scores will be a focus for the Divas’ defense. “They have the potential to make those big explosive plays,” Coach Fischer said. “Defensively we have to slow that down; we have to try to contain that and not give up too many easy, big plays.”
On the flip side, the Divas have taken an early lead in their two previous meetings against Dallas. But once ahead, the Divas offense has struggled to maintain the same sharpness throughout the entire contest. “We’ve had some opportunities offensively that we missed out on, particularly in the second half,” Fischer noted. “We’ve just got to play better. We have the potential on offense to drive the ball, but we have to limit our mistakes. We need to understand that because their offense is so explosive, no lead is ever safe and we have to play with the same urgency throughout the entire game, no matter the score. We can’t afford to ever have a letdown against a team as good as they are, and that goes for both sides of the ball.”
One thing that will be drastically different in the Divas’ rematch with the Dallas Elite will be the weather conditions. In their first meeting this season back in April, temperatures were around 40 degrees when the Divas and Elite took the field. For the national championship game, early weather forecasts are projecting temperatures in the high nineties by kickoff.
“It could be a scorcher, and the game is also kicking off a bit earlier (4:30 PM) than many of our games this year, so there could definitely be an extra heat element,” Fischer said. “But that’s all part of the game. That’s football...both teams have to deal with the weather and everything that comes with it. We’ve had some hot practices leading up to this, and we had a very hot game against Boston. Hopefully it has prepared us a bit for the conditions on Saturday.”
After 16 seasons, the D.C. Divas will be making their ESPN debut, with the WFA championship game set to be streamed online by ESPN3. Even though the Divas were just in the national title game last year, Coach Fischer has tried to impress upon her team that these are moments to savor and cherish.
“We’ve tried to relate to the younger players how special and how rare this journey has been, how difficult this is,” Fischer concluded. “The players who have only been here a year or two may not realize how challenging it is to get to this game two years in a row. We need to seize this opportunity, because you never know how long it could be before you get back. But with all that being said, I really want to focus on Dallas and the game itself, rather than the historical implications of it.”
What: 2016 WFA National Championship Game – D.C. Divas vs. Dallas Elite
When: Saturday, July 23 – Kickoff at 4:30 PM
Where: DeMichela Stadium, 205 W. Allegheny Rd, Imperial, PA
Coverage: ESPN3 (Broadcast starts at 4:00 PM)
For tickets and more information: http://www.thewbowl.com
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