With the start of the New England Rugby Football Union tournament at home, the Polar Bears stepped up big to come away with their ninth win of the season against Williams, 25-0.
"This was the best we've seen them play yet in terms of cohesive teamwork. They played up to a new level of teamwork support, defense, and communication," Coach MaryBeth Mathews said.
The team scored in the first 10 minutes off of a broken play. There was a mishandling error and Anna Nicol '11 retrieved the ball off a bounce and passed it off to Maria Koenigs '09, who ran the ball all the way around the back, down the sideline, and into the end zone.
Williams put Bowdoin on the defense for the next part of the game. The women played patient defense and relieved the pressure with good tackles and good kicks from Becky Stevens '11, Nicol, and Koenigs.
To make the score 10-0, Carolyn Levin '11, the fullback, came crashing through the back line and took a pass from Koenigs to split the defense, which allowed her to score the second try.
Toward the end of the first half Nicol took a pass from Stevens and outran the opponent to make the score 15-0. Stevens then made a left-foot conversion bringing the score to 17-0 before the end of the first half.
"[We] started out a little flat, almost half a step off in the second half, but quickly gained [our] presence back," Mathews said.
Bowdoin took advantage of a Williams penalty and Stevens converted the kick, making the score 20-0.
The last try was scored off "a good series of maintaining possession through several phases of play on a break from Stevens," Mathews said. The ball was then passed out to Lizbeth Lopez '09 who, with good footwork, passed the ball off to Danielle Carniaux '10, who made the final score of 25-0.
"Throughout the game we capitalized on the fact that our back line was stronger than theirs and found success in getting the ball out to them," co-captain Hannah Wadsworth '09 said.
Mathews said both Lopez and Catherine Jager '09 covered the field well, made solid tackles, and got involved in the offense.
"Our fullback and wings did a great job of fielding and kicking balls, and our pack battled hard and held their own against a pack that out-weighed us by about 30 pounds per person," Wadsworth said.
The teamwork for this game improved dramatically, Mathews thought.
"The backs and forwards meshed really well to play a total game of rugby," she said.
Bowdoin will be hosting the final four of the New England Championships for Division II and will play University of Vermont on Saturday at 1 p.m. UVM has only lost one game this season.
"I know that if we play our game, make our tackles, and take care of our passes, we can take anything they give us and dish even more back out to them," Wadsworth said.