Bowdoin women's rugby met its match in their first regular season game. Last Saturday, the Polar Bears fell to Radcliffe College 41-10.
Riding two earlier victories and an undefeated season last year, Bowdoin played strong defense for the first half, with Flanker Uche Esonu '13 scoring the first Bowdoin try.
"Bowdoin dominated territory in the first 20 minutes and played fairly well early on," said Coach Mary Beth Mathews,
But co-captain Erica Camarena '10 noted, "we made a lot of mistakes." Those mistakes and a few big plays allowed Radcliffe to evenly space out three tries, bringing the halftime score to 17-5.
Although Esonu scored again, the second half saw tidier playing from Radcliffe, which allowed them to rack up several more points, ending the game with a total of 41.
Mathews noted the obstacles that the Polar Bears faced: "the team is fairly young and inexperienced in many of the fifteen positions. While there were many good hard tackles and individual moments of solid play, poor defensive alignment and tackling and a few poorly placed kicks allow[ed] Radcliffe to score more easily."
But there is a silver lining to the loss.
"The hope is that valuable experience was gained by playing together and having to react to decision-making," said Mathews.
As a young team, Bowdoin needs all of the experience it can get.
"We had trouble getting things to click," says Camarena, "but there was definitely improvement."
With the Bates match coming up, Camarena sees an opportunity in the loss.
"Colby was a warm-up. . . [this game] was a wakeup call. We learned a lot, it really exposed our weaknesses, but we didn't play to our potential. We can play a lot better than we did," she said.
Bates will be a familiar opponent for the Bears, unlike Radcliffe, which dropped down from Division I after last year.
Radcliffe was "a very good and clean team," says Camarena. She cautioned that Bates, on the other hand, "tend[s] to play a really physical game, in a bad way some times." The game, she said, may get "very dirty."
The Polar Bears will play at Bates this Sunday, September 27, in Lewiston at noon.