Photo courtesy Vassar Athletics
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Rusty but good enough
The Vassar College Brewers took the field at arguably Spain’s most famous rugby club, certainly the oldest, Unió Esportiva Santboiana. Given that this was their first game since December 4th, players could be forgiven for some errors. Although Vassar scored first to take the lead, at the half, the hosts had clawed their way back into the game and were up 12-5. A quick discussion at halftime was whether to play for the win or make more substitutions. The former prevailed and so did Vassar.
Vassar 29 v 12 Unió Esportivo Santboiana
Tries: Freeman, Urrutia, Alexander, Ghant, Workman
Cons: McElduff, Emery
On a warm, dry Barcelona evening, it took the Vassar women a fair bit of time to hit their stride. Early on they were guilty of too many turnovers and they lost some of their set pieces. This put them on the back foot as the Spanish hosts were quick to move the ball wide and offload in contact.
Lauren Workman made a telling break close to a ruck that breached the defense and it seemed to galvanize the entire team. The move was continued as the forwards rushed in behind her and flanker Nathalie Freeman dived over for a score, after about twenty minutes.
It had been a tough twenty minutes, with the majority of territory belonging to the hosts. It seemed that, having scored somewhat against the run of play, the Vassar players might have thought the opposition was going to capitulate. To the contrary, they came back with a vengeance and scored two tries to take the lead, 12-5. On the first, Vassar was beaten out wide, and for the second, Vassar was very slow to set up its defensive line, and UES scored under the posts. Cue the revival.
In that first half, Jennie To and Mary Margaret McElduff had looked comfortable, but Vassar had not maintained enough possession to build a lead. Oshana Reich, playing her first game at number 8, was a pleasant surprise. She showed good speed from the base of the scrum. Kayla Lightner at inside center, playing her first game since September, looked sharp and Caroline James made some good tackles. But it was the forwards who began to find their form with some strong picking only thwarted by poor placement, which allowed UES to gain possession.
Michelle Urrutia intercepted a pass close to the UES goal line and scored to make it 12-10. The defensive line pressure from Vassar was such that now UES was unable to move the ball wide. Another very similar situation saw Abby Alexander grab possession and score and now the Vassar team had the ascendency.
The second half was punctuated with a number of stoppages as Nathalie Freeman, doing her best Simone Biles impersonation, was reprimanded by the referee for thrashing around with her legs in the tackle! The ebullient flanker is always a handful to bring down and did nothing other than run hard. The onus is on the tackler to contain the runner.
The scrum, which had wobbled in the first half, was rock-solid and Kristina Catomeris took a couple against the head, which led to strong runs from Reich. The final two tries fittingly went to front-five forwards Mariah Ghant and Lauren Workman. They were well deserved.
The final score line of 29-12 included conversions from Mary Margaret McElduff and Makenna Emery. Tomorrow Vassar takes on a very tough opponent in Carboners women and this task will be all the more difficult on account of playing back-to-back games.
Team: 15 Rachel Elson 14 Michelle Urrutia 13 Caroline Jones 12 Kayla Lightner 11 Makenna Emery 10 Mary Margaret McElduff 9 Jennie To 1 Kate Sworden 2 Kristina Catomeris 3 Mariah Ghant 4 Lauren Workman 5 Lizzie Bennett 6 Charlotte Benoit 7 Nathalie Freeman 8 Oshana Reich.
Subs: Alicia Menard-Livingston for Kayla Lightner, Laila Blumenthal-Rothchild for Caroline James, Abigail Alexander for Makenna Emery, Sarah Mawhinney for Lizzie Bennett, Claire Fondrie-Teitler for Sarah Mawhinney, Makenna Emery for Mary Margaret McElduff, Andi Ramsay for Michelle Urrutia, & Miranda Scarlata for Charlotte Benoit.
Additional squad players: Ellen Quist, Amy Hansen, Dylan Joyner, Sam Sample, Danielle Kaminski, Kayla Vasquez, Catherine Gladstone, Olivia Clopton Foster.
Overall record: 13-2-0
Next: Wednesday, March 15, 2017, at Carboners Women, KO 8:30 pm