photo courtesy of David Van Wie
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Dartmouth women's rugby team capped its inaugural regular season at the varsity level with a 63-0 win Saturday morning against Yale at New Haven Rugby Football Club Field.
The Big Green enter next weekend's Ivy Rugby 15's Tournament in Hanover with a 5-0 league record and a 5-1 overall mark to go along with a four-game unbeaten streak. The loss drops the Bulldogs to 2-3 overall and against Ancient Eight foes this fall.
Freshman scrumhalf Kat Ramage lead the team with 19 points, 10 from a pair of tries and eight from four successful conversions, while senior co-captain Tatjana Toeldte notched 17 of her own with a team-high three tries.
Dartmouth's scored 36 points in the first half, during which the team utilized its kicking game with a notable performance from rising backline player senior Camille Johnson converted the only successful penalty of the game. Johnson, who was a part of the starting lineup, proved critical for the team on line breaks and is one of the first freshmen to move into the heavier contact backline positions, in the center.
The rising presence of underclassmen, head coach Dowty said, will be critical moving forward.
“It was great to see the team start trusting their instincts and react to what the defense was showing us today,” Dowty said. “Quite a few new players stepped up and proved that we can have plenty of confidence in our bench as we go into the Ivy Championships next weekend, which will be crucial playing two games over two days.”
Throughout the second half, Dowty and assistant coach Matt Cameron started to cycle in subs, giving every player time on the pitch. Despite the change in personnel, the team scored the same amount of tries and held on for the shutout with the combination of an incredible backfield tackle by freshman Danielle Ramsay and a team try line stand to close out the match with very few senior players on the pitch to coordinate.
In the scrum, Dartmouth cycled in a completely new front row, putting prop sophomore Dalia Rodriguez-Caspeta to hooker, while rookies Kiera Pyke and Anabel Moreno-Mendez propped. Lock Ashley Zepeda took over eight man, while Erika Cabrera saw her first minutes as a flanker. The team, given its first opportunity to scrum, drove completely over Yale's starting pack, making the set piece a critical component of the team's second half success.
This weekend, Dartmouth will host all eight Ivy contenders for the Championship weekend, which calls for back-to-back 15s matches to be played by all teams entered. With a 5-0 Ivy record, Dartmouth sits atop the Ivy League and will play the fourth-place team on Saturday.
Information regarding times and matchups will be announced this week. For more material concerning the Ivy Championship, please check back with DartmouthSports.com.
Release Courtesy of Gayne Kalustian '17
