Women's rugby nabs first win, men fall to Harvard

By Angus Dwyer, Issue 05, 2001-10-03

The women's rugby team brought an end to its three-game scoreless streak on Saturday with a commanding 17-7 win over UConn at home.

Rebecca Muse-Orlinoff '03, the club president, scored the team's first points early in the second half to bring the score to 5-0. Emily Stark '04 and Holly Myers '05 also scored. Elizabeth Hawkins '03 went 1-3 on extra kicks, with both her misses coming off difficult angle kicks.

"This is the first game that we really came together," said Regina Scribner '04. "The scrum and the backs really worked together."

"This is how our team should be playing, how we expected to be playing" said Muse-Orlinoff.

The performance of the B-side team revealed the depth that may be the key to the team's future success.

"The B-side looked really good and showed a lot of improvement," said Muse-Orlinoff.

The team hopes to continue their success during the rest of the season. But, the focus right now is on Saturday's Williams College tilt.

"We're ready for Williams," Scribner said.

The men's team was less successful, falling 35-15 to Harvard. They also played a tough, defensive first half and only trailed 6-0 at halftime. Although the men's team had little offensive success in the first half, "[The Crimson] were struggling as well in the beginning," said David Stasiak '03.

Although their offense got in gear in the second half, with tries from Jason Cavatorta '04 and Stasiak and a kick by John Orraca-Tetteh '02, the defense more or less fell apart, allowing 29 points to the Crimson.

"Our defense needs some work," Stasiak said. The men's effort was handicapped by the absence of key players Seth Birnbaum '02 and Jake Schulz '02 due to injury.

The loss, though a disappointment, was a drastic improvement over the previous week, an 80-0 loss to the United States Military Academy. "We looked better than against Army, but it's hard not to," Stasiak said.

This Saturday both the men's and women's teams will be playing at home for the first time this season. The women will face archrival Williams College at 11:00 a.m. The men will follow against the University of New Hampshire Wildcats, who bring a 1-1 record into the game, having beaten UMass 27-23 last week.