The Dartmouth women's rugby club took on Army this weekend for the second time this season. The last time the two teams met, during the first weekend of the spring season, it was an intense match-up and the sequel was more of the same.
However, after some aggressive play from both squads, the Dartmouth squad emerged victorious by a whopping 50 points.
Army's forwards controlled play in the first minutes of game, but soon the DWRC adjusted and began committing more forwards to contact. The strategy proved to be effective, and momentum soon swung to Dartmouth's favor.
Because of the intensely aggressive nature of the rucks, scrumhalf Lily Lei '06 was forced to be especially tenacious in digging the ball out for the backs and belligerent in directing the forwards to drive. The Dartmouth backline had a great day, with excellent passing and strong running through tacklers. In one particularly important sequence, Emily Battle '05 passed the ball off quickly to Kirsten Ahrendt '07, who scored her second try of the day.
Outside center Meg Verdeyen '03 continued her trademark aggressive running, bowling over tacklers and making Army's comparatively small backs very nervous.
Verdeyen made herself a force to be reckoned with from the get-go. In the first half, after receiving a quick pass from Battle, she ran through the defense to score a third try. Battle then made a picture-perfect conversion and added two points to Dartmouth's 24-point lead.
Dartmouth's backs had great success passing the ball all day long. The trend began early on when Ahrendt scored the first try of the day off a pass from the centers.
The focus in the second half changed from spread play to set pieces, when Army touched the ball down three times in their own try-zone, and Dartmouth was awarded scrums each time. Early in the half, the DWRC worked to maintain its lead, knowing that it had lost the advantage the wind gave it early in the game. However, it looked determined to continue dominating, and soon after the restart, Verdeyen scored her second try of the game.
At this late point in the game, Army's forwards were becoming visibly tired and discouraged, as the DWRC won all of their scrums and most of Army's. Alysia Harris '08 sealed the defensive deal in the second half by putting stifling pressure on Army's offense.
Before the end of the game, Battle and Ahrendt each scored once more, and Battle notched one more conversion.
Although Dartmouth won the game by 50 points, the score doesn't show the level of intensity with which Army played. In terms of field play, the team's forwards were closely matched, and Army's backline aggression more than made up for its size.
Make no mistake, this was an intensely fought match, in part because of Army's commitment on the field. They played as hard in the second half as they did in the first, despite the widening margin.
DWRC was doubly impressed when Army returned to the field to play Dartmouth's B-side just minutes after the A-Side game.
