Hanover
Stiff arms featured fists on their ends. Players staggered out of pileups with 1,000-yard stares and in one Yellow Jacket’s case, a bloody nose. Nonplussed, she pulled a plug of turf from the lawn beneath her boots and stuffed it up her nostrils, creating a grassy mustache.
“We set up a really competitive schedule and wanted to test ourselves early and see if we could stand up to the physicality,” said second-year coach Katie Dowty, whose team used freshman Becca Jane Rosco’s second try of the day and a Kat Ramage conversion kick to score what proved to be the winning points with 10 minutes to play.
“We want to play a full-width, exciting, dynamic running game and use the outside channels to get some breakaways. We want to be able to launch an attack from anywhere on the field and not just around the break down.”
AIC has a reputation as a big, physical team that mauls you in the trenches and, if it can catch you in the open field, makes you regret the ensuing tackles. Throw in jitterbug ball carrier Ann-Laurence Harvey and the Yellow Jackets showed why they reached last fall’s national semifinals.
“We knew AIC was the most physical team in the league and we really wanted to get to the outside because we have a whole bunch of speed this year,” said Ramage, whose team won the 2015 Ivy Rugby Conference title during its debut varsity season. “We’re playing a structure that really stretches the field and allows us to attack the corners.”
Dartmouth captain Ashley Zepeda broke through with the game’s first try during the 30th minute. AIC matched that three minutes later to tie the score at 5-5 with both teams failing to convert their kicks. The Big Green took a 10-5 lead into intermission after Danielle Ramsay produced a try during the 40th minute.
The first of Rosco’s two scores came in the opening minute of the second half and began at midfield. The rookie scooped up the ball and dropped a defender with one hand before running in for five points. Ramage added the two-point conversion to push the score to 17-5.
The Yellow Jackets chipped away at the deficit with the game’s next two tries to pull to within 17-15 during the 59th minute. However, another try by Rosco and a Ramage conversion with 10 minutes remaining moved the lead back to nine. AIC produced a try and conversion during the final minute but Dartmouth improved to 7-1 at Brophy Field since its elevation to varsity status last year.
Dowty praised Morgan McGonagle, who played her first game at flanker after serving in the back last season. Charged with winning the ball, securing possession during break downs and leading the defense, the junior from Denver was moved to that position by recently-hired assistant coach Stacey Bridges, who plays in the same spot for the U.S. national team.
“You want to play smarter, not harder, so a flanker has to recognize if the ball is lost and where she can make the most impact,” Dowty said.
Dowty hopes a seven-woman freshman class, comprised completely of players with high school rugby experience, will also make a difference. Rosco started at fly half and Isabel Boettcher at fullback from that group Saturday.
Throw in sophomores Ramage (scrum half), Milla Anderson (second row), Anabel Moreno-Mendez (loosehead prop), Jules Wheaton (tighthead prop), Ashley DuPuis (wing) and Danielle Ramsey (center) and more than half of the home lineup was comprised of underclassmen. Dowty said the younger players’ previous experience, combined with their elders’ time in the college ranks, has allowed her to teach at a higher level this season.
“We always focus on the basics, but we were able to pick up where we left off last year,” said Dowty, whose team heads to Army on Friday and Brown eight days after that. “We’re challenging more players to read the space and send one of their teammates away. Last year, we asked them to mostly be the receiver and pound it over the gain line.
“Hopefully, this game puts the rest of the varsity teams on notice, because now we believe we can win a national championship.”
Notes: The Big Green will hold walk-on tryouts next week. … Dowty coached AIC in 2014 and four of her players remain on the current squad. … Central Washington, another of Dowty’s former employers, has moved from club to varsity status for the current women’s rugby season, along with Notre Dame College, in South Euclid, Ohio. Dowty said that makes 10 varsities nationwide, with more presumably to come in the next year or two. … Bridges is a former Texas A&M student who intended to join the Aggies’ powerlifting team, but was waylaid en route to signups by a pair of rugby players, who diverted her to their sport. She’s appeared in 18 international matches for the U.S. … Dartmouth’s Frankie Sands started at center and is a transfer from Norwich University. She scored the Cadets’ winning points last fall in the national quarterfinals against the Big Green. Sands’ online biography states that she lettered four times each in rugby and cheerleading at Essex (Vt.) High and was an All-American in each sport. She plans to major in biology and Spanish with a minor in math to prepare for a career in medicine. … Dartmouth’s next home match is Sept. 24 against Columbia. … The national varsity semifinals and title match are slated for Nov. 18-20 at West Point, N.Y.