Last week's lone DI game saw Dartmouth win well over AIC. That result bumped the Big Green 114 standings points, while AIC lost 271. All of this put Dartmouth in 2nd and AIC slid from 2nd to 5th.
However, as we've mentioned, there is still much to play for and 3rd through 8th are separated by only 225 points, which can be covered with one result. Coming up, AIC plays Brown in what is listed as a non-post-season-relevant game, so that won't impact the standings. AIC will have to wait until Friday's match with Sacred Heart for that, while Brown will be at Queens October 18.
Just ahead of the YellowJackets is Army, which takes on 0-2 Queens in North Carolina. The Black Knights can hold onto that 4th place with a win.
Navy is at Harvard, and the Crimson remain the top team in the competition so far. Navy has pulled off an upset already and will need one here.
For Harvard, they seem to reload really quickly and you often see freshmen in their starting lineup. That's a function of Head Coach Mel Denham not being over-cautious in her selections—with her players training about eight times as many minutes as they could potentially play, she looks to maximize both opportunities.
"Our philosophy is around what each player brings and what the team needs for each game regardless of class year," Denham told GRR. "So we discuss that each week as coaches and we discuss impact in training as well as games. For me it’s been pretty cool to see Lily Miller, a senior this year who walked onto the team her freshman year without any rugby experience, now starting at lock for us. She’s been a student of the game and put in so much work developing her game over the past three years. And of course you get development in games, but if you get the training environment and resources right, I firmly believe players should be developing in training as well."
