Women's Rugby Falls to Dartmouth in Ivy League Championship

The last time the Harvard women’s rugby team faced off against Dartmouth in the Ivy League championship game, it emerged victorious in shutout fashion to claim its first varsity title in the sport.

This Sunday, the Crimson (6-2, 4-2 Ivy) hosted the Big Green (7-1, 6-0) in a rematch of that 2013 game, only to allow its Ancient Eight foe to avenge its loss three seasons ago. Dartmouth trumped Harvard in an intense contest by a score of 14-5, seizing its second consecutive title.

The Crimson, after dropping Sunday’s season finale, has lost three consecutive 15’s matches to the Big Green, including its only two losses of the 2016 season. The match marks the lowest-scoring contest of the year with respect to both Harvard’s point total and the two teams’ aggregate score.

“It was a really hard-fought match,” freshman Delia Hellander said. “Even though we didn’t come out on top…we played as a team, we did all we could, [and] I have no regrets. We played for each other out there.”

In the middle of the second half, after minutes on end of offensive pressure right up against the Harvard try zone, Dartmouth finally broke through the seemingly impermeable Crimson defense. The Big Green tied the match on freshman Isabel Boettcher’s penalty try resulting from Harvard’s illegal high tackle, and the ensuing two-point conversion thrust Dartmouth into the lead with mere minutes remaining.

Following the lead change, the Big Green controlled the majority of the match until the final horn, further padding its advantage with a try from junior Rachel Hand, upon which the two-point kick was also converted. Hand broke free from a pack of players and trotted into the try zone largely uncontested with eight minutes remaining.

“We were really just trying to move the ball forward and keep our feet driving,” said Harvard senior Claire Collins about the late-game momentum shift, “but Dartmouth had a great defensive stand.”

The match opened in a very tight, closely contested manner, with play concentrated near the center of the pitch. After almost 15 minutes of attrition-esque rugby, Dartmouth began showing glimpses of offensive lust, advancing the ball dangerously close to the Harvard try zone with multiple strong runs downfield. The Crimson, thanks to Hellander’s sturdy solo tackling on the back line, trudged out of its defensive half of the pitch with a determined resolve, eventually restoring the match to mostly neutral, mid-field play.

“We were really just resilient,” said Hellander regarding her team’s stalwart defense. “We had a tight interior defense that we could stop them with before they even got out wide.”

The game did not see its blank score change until the end of the first half, when Harvard was finally able to bring the ball into its offensive half of the field. Sophomore Genevieve Quirion drove in a try in the 39th minute, giving her team the 5-0 lead through the first frame.

Upon resuming the match after the halftime break, play was relatively stagnant for almost 20 minutes, characterized by lots of back-and-forth jostling for field position. This grinding ended, of course, when Dartmouth seized momentum en route to stealing the late-match victory.

The Crimson ends this year’s 15’s campaign having outscored its opponents 359-63, while the Big Green amassed a grand score of 362-156 over that span.

“This was a really tough game,” Collins said. “I feel like calls went both ways, no one really had a strong advantage…and [Dartmouth] really hung tough. My hat’s off to [the Big Green]