Sixteen Seattle Breakers made the trip to Arizona for yesterday’s match, but it was enough. The DI women’s club improved to 3-1 after a 44-0 victory over Tempe, and retains second place in CR1 behind ORSU.

“It was a really hard game and we were lucky that the heat didn’t get to us,” Seattle coach Marty Quick said. “The scoreline does not reflect how the game was. They were really physical around the breakdown, and there was some good poaching and rucking.”

Seattle was able to find successful through middle and sent center Megan Sanders crashing through the defense for some long, tackle-breaking runs. Tempe flyhalf Toni Fujiwara tried to keep the offense honest with her boot, but the back three did well to cover the field and support one another on the returns.

Seattle’s defense stepped it up and was led up front by lock Keisha Carlson, who was also point for the Breakers’ solid lineouts. The entire back row was on fire, continually pressured the halfbacks, and disrupted Tempe’s fluidity on offense.

While the victory was a replete win for the team, Quick acknowledged that the tackling broke down as the game wore on. Players were going in high as fatigue set in, and that’s as aspect of the game that Quick will be reiterating through training this week.

Seattle has two more league games against Belmont Shore and Nor Cal, and while the Breakers are favored in these matches, they’re certainly not looking past them.

“Belmont Shore has traditionally been an even matchup for us, but we’ll have an advantage playing at home,” Quick said. “It’ll be a pretty hard game. Nor Cal is like Jekyll and Hyde. When they show up, they’re a great team.”

CR1 has three seeds to the Round of 8, so if all goes as planned, Seattle should be booking tickets to Texas. The Breakers finished fourth in the nation last year, but the road to the final four will be more difficult this year.

“Last year we had an old team, but we’ve had some turnover, and now we’re a young team,” Quick said. “We’re feeling good, practices are going well, and we getting good numbers. As long as we have those numbers traveling to Austin, we should do alright.”

Quick is convinced that she has a final-four team, but acknowledges that the team doesn’t have the luxury of having everyone available.