When the Dartmouth Women's Rugby Club won its first league game of the fall season, defeating Radcliffe 12-5, the road towards another great season began. The club has a history of impressive fall season play and Dartmouth is known as the team to beat in the New England Playoffs.
This year's team began the quest for another showing in the playoffs with a victory in a torrential downpour at McGill in Montreal. After a few more games, Dartmouth's record grew to 4-0 in Ivy League play. At this point the team had outscored its opponents 146-19, and the dream of a great season became a reality.
The scoreboard includes the preseason win at McGill (12-5); the defeat of Amherst (34-14); the first shut-out at UMass (39-0); the second one over Vermont (19-0); a scrimmage against the Boston Women's Club which ended in a 15-19 loss; and a 64-0 drubbing of Boston College.
A key to the team's success lies in the ability of the players to make adjustments during the play. Coach Deb Archambault has led the team to follow the "three-game concept" developed by the National Women's Rugby Club, which consists of a spread game, group game, and kicking game.
This type of thinking allows the team as a whole to adjust to different types of play from opponents. It also lets players know when to move across the field sideways if coming against a centralized defense, when to move vertically up the field and how to utilize rucks and mauls to consolidate a spread defense.
Captain Elisabeth Kann '96 said the concept allows rugby to be "an all-around game for everyone. Backs are in mauls, and forwards carry the ball. Everybody works hard for every try."
The team unity and effort are mentioned frequently by the ruggers as other keys to their success. "The sense of unity came from how much Deb stressed the importance of us working together," Trish Bankowski '95 said.
As the season wore on, the relatively young forwards benefited from this philosophy. By not going backwards as they did in early games, the club's scrum came together with such force that it caused the first scrum against UConn to collapse.
The team's efforts ended with the win of a championship title last weekend, as the ruggers defeated two top-level teams to win the New England Playoffs. Saturday's game pitted the team against rival UConn in a battle of the undefeated. Dartmouth came out on top, crushing UConn by a score of 39-0.
The team then met Amherst in the final game on Sunday. Dartmouth had already beaten Amherst earlier on and, with a tough defensive stance and quick backline tactics, the Big Green pulled another win. Tries by Erica Puccio '95 and Nicolette Van der Lee '95 put the score at 13-0 in Dartmouth's favor.
With this win, Dartmouth will advance to the Eastern Playoffs at Princeton in the spring. As a first time honor for the ruggers, it reflects not only their gritty determination during playoff games, but also the efforts made throughout the season as the club built itself into the best team in New England.
