HANOVER, N.H. – No. 1 seeded Dartmouth women's rugby had a 75-15 victory No. 8 Brown in the NIRA Quarterfinal at Brophy Field on Saturday. The Big Green improved to 7-1 overall and advanced to the semifinal, while the Bears saw their season end with a 2-5 mark.
Nine different players had at least one try, while senior
Camille Johnson, sophomore
Marin Pennell and freshman
Ale Ada all had two. Johnson led the way with 25 points from two tries, one penalty kick and six conversions.
"Today was a great team effort from all 23 players on the roster," head coach
Katie Dowty said. "The biggest key to the postseason for every team is depth, and we're very proud of how our veteran players have helped our newer players develop over the past few weeks. Today, we were able to spread out some invaluable match experience that will help us next weekend in the Final Four."
Dartmouth started the game strongly when Ada scored the opening try just 49 seconds into the first half. After that, the Big Green took off, scoring six more tries in a 17-minute span (Margot Généreux,
Sophie Ragg,
Milla Anderson, Johnson, Ada and Pennell). Add three good conversions by Johnson, and Dartmouth had a 41-0 edge halfway through the first.
It took less than nine minutes for
Karina Martinez to get one of her own to further increase the Green's lead. The Bears tried their hand at a try, evading a few Dartmouth players before being taken down. A good penalty kick by Johnson gave the home team a 51-0 edge heading into the intermission.
Dartmouth opened the second with three tries scored in eight minutes (Johnson, Pennell and
Maya Perkins) to make it a 68-0 game. In the 15th minute, Brown broke through to score its first try of the match, but the Green responded two minutes later when
Olivia Marquis scored her first collegiate try. The Bears appeared to find their stride after that, scoring two tries and adding a good conversion to get to double digit points (75-17), but the game ended soon after.
On Friday, Nov. 16, Dartmouth will host both semifinal matches at Brophy Field. The Big Green will play the winner of the Norwich/Army game at 12 p.m., while the winner of the AIC/Harvard game will take on the winner of the Notre Dame College/Quinnipiac matchup at 2 p.m.