Women's Rugby Goes 4-1 in Tournament

The more Harvard women’s rugby plays, the better the weather gets. That’s one reason to root for them. The other reason—they’re good.

Avenging a heartbreaking 14-5 loss against Dartmouth last November in the Ivy League Tournament Championship, Radcliffe Rugby responded with blows of its own on Sunday afternoon by holding the Hanover, N.H. team scoreless. This performance landed them a spot on the podium at its third straight tournament.

“This tournament went really well,” said recently named NIRA All-American senior Claire Collins. “We were really, really pleased with it. I think that we showed a lot of mental toughness, in that we were able to come into every game with a lot of physicality and putting forth a lot of effort.”

HARVARD 24, DARTMOUTH A 0

A lot of rivalries are developed of spite, and solidified with hatred. Or they can be imparted with congeniality. In a game in which the team that hits better wins, it’s usually the former. But the game between the two Ancient Eight teams played on Sunday bucked that trend by showed a friendly competitiveness.

“It’s always fun when we play Dartmouth because we do know them so well at this point,” Collins said. “We play them multiple times a semester, basically every semester. We felt really confident going into that game because we had played so well throughout the day and I think we able to really execute our game plan, play with all seven members of the field, and really hit them hard.”

Harvard faltered in last season’s finale because it was stymied by Dartmouth’s defense, which allowed just five points (for reference, the Crimson scored 91 in a game against Cornell last fall). But with more rooms to move in 7s play, Harvard showed spring in its step. This time around the team scored three tries in the first half, exploiting the space and its speedy wingers.

The team did not let off the gas pedal in the second half to cruise to its second straight game in which it held its opponent scoreless.

Women’s rugby was able to land a third place medal, meaning that they have taken three of the top four finishing in its opening tournaments. The only one that has escaped is the space atop the podium. But with performances like this and Ivy 7s Championships coming up in two weeks, there is much to be optimistic about attaining that prize.

HARVARD 29, DARTMOUTH B 0

In the ten-team, two pool tournament several teams brought multiple squads to give their players more playing time and experience. But more isn’t always better. Playing Harvard, Dartmouth also experienced more defeat.

The Crimson brought the face of youth to the Big Green. Prolific freshman attacker Delia Hellander provided the opening try in the last pool game of the afternoon. But classmate Dominique Cantave, coming off injury, debuted this spring by contributing a try as well. The pair combines with other strong players including All-American Caitlin Weigel to form a formidable future for Harvard.

From there, the Crimson only looked forward. While a much higher score might be expected in a game against a lower side, the team was looking at other, more important things.

Getting back into game action means seeing things at higher speeds. Defense suffers and offense just doesn’t seem to look like it did in practice. To remedy this, the team’s leadership preaches spacing.

“In 7s, moving the ball to space is the name of the game and in order to do that we have to have a really steep and wide alignment so that we can beat people to the ball, so that we can move the ball to space,” Collins said.

Proper alignment is especially important while playing 7s because one blown position often leads to a try. But taking the final two games of the tournament in hand, the concept seems to be coming together.

“I think that we were really disciplined in staying in our alignment, getting the ball to space, and then having the support there where it needs to be,” said Collins. “So we were able to keep possession most of the game, every game, it felt like, which was awesome. And that means you get tries on the board.”

ARMY 26, HARVARD 10

Collegiate women’s rugby has some pretty clear tiers: national contenders, conference contenders, and club teams. Army is at the top. The team from West Point put on a clinic by blanking Harvard 21-0 in the first half, stifling its northern neighbors.

But the Crimson did show some resilience at the end, scoring two tries in the second half that would propel them to two unblemished games to finish off the tournament. Most impressive and encouraging about the result was the dynamic try to close out the game in which all seven Harvard players passed around the ball on the pitch. The concept of spacing was turning from an abstract concept to a systemic facilitator.

HARVARD 26, NORWICH 12

In a rematch of play from last week, the Crimson displayed early tournament jitters against the Cadets. Acting as medicine, Norwich broke into the box score first with a try and would continue to pressure Harvard going into the halftime locker room.

“That was a tough game at the start,” Collins said. “We let up two pretty soft tries, but we had total confidence in our team. We had seen them last weekend and we knew that we could come back and beat these guys. And I think that we really stayed composed and stuck to our structures, and we were able to stretch the field, attack the holes, and score, you know, four unanswered tries.”

Once again, the team from Northfield, Vt. was a wake-up call—which the Crimson dutifully answered. Harvard would put up 16 unanswered points and moved on to fight a stronger battalion.

HARVARD 31, BROWN 5

Facing the hosts of the tournament, Harvard make sure to make itself right at home. The blowout victory to start the day, along with its strong performance against Dartmouth, makes the team primed for a good performance at Ivys.

Indeed, the Crimson let up five points each of its two games last year against Brown at the league championship. But the Bears can easily turn into bulls, as they routed the Crimson 36-0 at the Varsity 7s Championships.

Harvard is in the driver’s seat. It just needs to keep moving forward.

—Staff writer William Quan can be reached at william.quan@thecrimson.com