In their last regular season home game, women's rugby will face off against University of New Hampshire at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
The Polar Bears beat their Division II opponents 29-22 last year, and must be feeling good about their chances after bringing themselves up to 2-2 with their defeat of Northeastern University last week.
Blanking their opponents 36-0, the Polar Bears forgot about their recent loss to the University of Maine-Orono as they powered through their opponents.
"Northeastern had some strong players, but they also made a lot of mistakes, which we were able to capitalize on to dominate much of the game," said co-captain Hannah Larson '10.
Early Northeastern pressure, especially in the scrums, eventually crumbled as Bowdoin kept on the heat.
"The best part of the game for us was toward the end of the first half, when we used our passing and speed out wide to score several trys and get well ahead on the scoreboard," said Larson.
Becky Stevens '11 started the Polar Bears off right with a charge down the sideline to bring Bowdoin to an early lead. A great team effort by Danielle Willey '12, Katie Mathews '12, Anna Nicol '11 and co-captain Erica Camarena '10 tacked on another score and pushed the Bears up to 12-0. Elsbeth Paige-Jeffers '10, Uche Esonu '13 and Larson all contributed a try each in the rest of the first half. With a steady flow of conversion kicks by Stevens the Polar Bears sat pretty with a solid 29-0 edge at the end of the first half.
Stinging from a scoreless first half marked by several near-trys, Northeastern hit the ground running in the second half and used the forward pack to bring the ball within scoring range several more times.
"Northeastern still challenged us, particularly in the beginning of the second half when the ball was near our try line for a long period of time," said Larson. "We managed to keep them from scoring with effective defensive tackling, but their forwards made winning our own scrums and lineouts more difficult."
Nevertheless, Esonu managed to score another try, followed by a successful kick from Stevens. A dedicated effort from its opponent kept Bowdoin from scoring again, leaving the final score at a comfortable 36-0.
With a week full of hard work and practice, Bowdoin's game was noticeably more fine-tuned and efficient. Better communication, good kicks and conversions and excellent formations allowed Bowdoin to make the most of its yardage.
"In a team debrief afterwards, we agreed that it had been a fun game punctuated by excellent support for one another on the pitch, but that we still made mistakes and needed to clean up parts of our game, such as rucking, alignment, and decision making," Larson said. "A better opponent would have taken advantage of our defensive holes and might not have let us through so easily on offense."
Northeastern made up for its dearth of B-side players by filling in players from the A-side game, allowing Bowdoin's B-side to get some more reps. A lone try by Helen White '13 was not enough to counter Bowdoin's veteran opponents, and Bowdoin ended up losing the B-side match.