Women's Rugby Prepares For Title Run

Students and tourists alike better watch out as they walk through the Yard this week, because the Harvard women’s rugby team (3-2, 3-1 Ivy) is on the hunt for an Ivy League Championship, and they will do whatever it takes to get there.

“Our coaches have been stressing keeping the intensity and visualizing tackling people that we walk by on the streets to get in that mindset of having to do it on the field,” co-captain Brandy Machado said.

In rugby, it can take many tries to win a game. However, for the women’s rugby team it only took one try to make an impact in its inaugural varsity season. The squad heads to Dartmouth this weekend to compete in the women’s rugby Ivy League Championships.

The Crimson, seeded second, will face third-seeded Brown in the first round on Saturday. No. 1 seed Dartmouth will be facing fourth-seeded Princeton. If it wins on Saturday, Harvard expects to play Dartmouth in the final game on Sunday for the league title. The Big Green is undefeated so far this season.

Going into the season, the Crimson had high expectations. Seeing as the team had experienced recent success, winning the USA Rugby Collegiate Division II National Championship in 2011 as a club team, they hoped to continue that pattern in 2013 with their varsity status.

“This is exciting for us because [winning Ivy Championships] has been our primary goal for this season,” fellow co-captain Ali Haber said.

By beating Princeton on October 19th, Harvard was guaranteed an automatic spot in the tournament rather than being forced to compete in a play-in game. The week allowed the team to rest and spend more time on strategy.

“We’ve been trying different game plans, putting people in different positions, and trying to add different plays to our list,” Machado said.

Prior to consecutive wins against Princeton and Brown, the Crimson had an up-and-down regular season, with early losses to Quinnipiac and Dartmouth straddling a victory against Yale. The two most recent wins have given confidence to the team and built momentum going into the most important weekend of the season.

“We are hungry for more of that,” Machado said. “We haven’t tapered off. We are working on building from that so we can do it again against Brown and whoever we play after them. It’s fueling the fire.”

The last time Harvard faced the Bears, the team came out victorious with a final score of 57-7. Xanni Brown was key to the victory as she scored more than half of Harvard’s points. The senior co-captain leads the team in tries for the season with 12 and looks to be a major asset throughout the tournament. Machado also had three tries in the match and is also one of the team’s high-scorers for the season.

“We have a lot of speed in the back and the forwards which is not true for a lot of teams,” Haber said. “We also have some huge kickers which can be helpful in many situations.”

Although the team has focused heavily on its matchup against Brown in the first round, the Crimson has also been studying Dartmouth’s strategy, as the Big Green will likely be the opponent in the final round.

When Harvard played Dartmouth earlier this season, things did not go as the team would have hoped. The Crimson dropped a close match by a final score of 10-5.

“We know they will have new tricks up their sleeve, but we will too,” Brown said.

Despite holding the Big Green to only two tries, Haber wasn’t pleased with the way things went and adds that the team is hungry for a rematch against their Ivy foe.

“We came out a little bit weak in that game,” Haber said. “Our goal is to show them what they missed out on.”

Expectations are also high for the women, as it is their chance to prove that they have taken advantage of their newly instituted varsity status. Compared to past seasons when they were known as the Harvard Radcliffe Rugby Football Club, the team has received an abundance of new resources with varsity funding. They are the only team in the Ivy League to have gained this status.

“We feel a little bit more responsibility to show what we’ve gotten out of all these resources,” Haber said. “We are getting a lot more resources from our school than any of these other teams are, so that should show in how we play the game.”

Despite Harvard’s resource advantage, the Ivy League has been very competitive this year. Amongst the four teams competing this weekend, there have been several very close games.

“It’s really anybody’s championship to take home,” Brown said.