Women's Rugby Falls Against Army in Quarterfinals of Inaugural National Championships

The Harvard women’s rugby team was part of history this weekend, participating in the first ever National Collegiate Women's Varsity Rugby Association Tournament. The tournament was the first of its kind, allowing only varsity and NCAA compliant teams to compete.

“It’s a huge honor to be able to play in this first inaugural varsity championship,” co-captain Hope Schwartz said. “It’s something that the Harvard athletic department was an integral part of organizing, so to be able to go and represent our school and our athletic department amongst the other varsity teams in the Northeast was a huge privilege.”

The tournament, many hope, will be the predecessor to fully integrating women’s rugby into the NCAA and establishing an official NCAA women’s rugby tournament.

Coming off a difficult pair of losses in the Ivy League tournament last week, the Crimson (4-5, 3-2 Ivy) looked to bounce back against an Army squad it faced three times last spring. Playing away at West Point, the Crimson tallied three tries but fell, 58-21.

Following last week’s tournament, Harvard came into the weekend with a depleted squad. Four of the Crimson’s starters were unable to play in Sunday’s matchup due to injury: senior Ann-Marie Barrett, junior Claire Collins, sophomore Sam Singal, and freshman Grace Chao.

Harvard would struggle early on, however, allowing three tries and a kick to give Army a 22-0 lead within the first ten minutes of the match before the Crimson could respond. In the 20th minute, and off a series of penalties, Harvard put itself on the scoreboard.

“Our first try that we scored was after a series of Army penalties and basically we responded in a very organized way and we worked together as a unit to decide what we were going to with the successive penalties,” Schwartz said. “[We] ended up getting up a lot of territory and eventually were able to just touch the ball into the try zone off a pick and go.”

Freshman Susie Clements would convert the kick to cut the lead to 15 at 22-7.

For head coach Sue Parker, the match was more than the shaky start and the loss. After a season of ups and downs, the team responded following the tough start to the match.

“All of the players on this team showed incredible mental resilience and pulled it together and actually fought back and the rest of the game was give and take and pretty even between the two teams,” Parker said.

Following the Crimson’s first try, both squads locked down on defense, with neither scoring for the next 20 minutes.

“We just really upped our intensity and aggression at the point of contact,” Parker said. “As soon as we started putting Army under pressure they started making mistakes.”

Nearing the end of the first half, the Knights made a late push into Harvard territory and managed to score a try and conversion to take a 29-7 lead at the half.

In the second half, the Crimson again faltered on defense, allowing four uncontested tries for 24 points. Again, Harvard would respond, as following big drives from Schwartz and freshman Virginia Miller, sophomore Haley Langan crossed the try line for the Crimson’s second try of the day. Clements would convert again to put the score at 53-14.

Building off the momentum of the last try, freshman Genevieve Quirion crossed the try line off the assist from sophomore Maya Learned to put the score at 53-19. Clements would convert for a third time to put the score at 53-21. Army would score in the closing minutes of the match to take the game 58-21.

Despite the loss, the last matchup of the season presented an important opportunity for the Harvard as the team heads into the spring 7’s season.

“I think one of the really interesting and fun opportunities this game presented was that because it was potentially going to be the last fifteen game of the season,” Schwartz said. “We knew that now was the time to try some of the stuff we’d been working on and we got to try a lot of new things during the game and we had new people in new positions and it was just really fun to play with that mentality.”