It was the 35^th anniversary of the D.C. Ruggerfest, and clubs from around the country traveled to the nation's capital for one of the largest women-only tournaments in the U.S. Dartmouth made a tour out of the trip south and celebrated its first stop with a tournament trophy.

The Big Green posted some big numbers against Catholic University (54-0), Mount St. Mary’s (53-7) and American University (49-0) in the final, but chalked up the lopsided scores to the difference between Division I and Division III/NSCRO, in which the rest of the competition regularly competes.

“We were using this part of our tour for development of our younger players, since they did not have many matches this fall,” Dartmouth coach Deb Archambault explained. “We have 10 freshmen with us on tour, and they all got to play at least a half in every match. If we had put a full first side out in any of the matches, the scores would have been much higher.”

One game appeared to be close – the 19-12 match against a combined Mount St. Mary’s/William & Mary team – but Dartmouth played all of its freshmen the entire game and kept its best players on the bench.

“American University has some very good athletes, and it appeared that they would be much tougher competition,” Archambault said of the Ruggerfest final. “But, frankly, while all of the teams that we played had a somewhat organized defense through at least two or three phases, none of the teams seemed to have had enough tackling preparation yet. We put 49 points on the board in the first half of a 20-minute-half game, then subbed in the remainder of our first-years.  American held us to zero points in the second half and were close to scoring several times. They had very good size in their forwards, and they had some good ball movement and speed.”

Dartmouth’s senior class made a big impact on the weekend. On offense, No. 8 Leandra Barrett, fullback Diana Wise, and scrumhalf/inside center Becky Marder stood out (junior flanker Yejadai Dunn was also dangerous). Defensively, senior locks Allison Brouckman and Michaela Conway led an impressive front that allowed only three tries against all weekend. Conway also slotted 16 of 18 conversions.

The Big Green is currently in Charlottesville, Va., in preparation for a game against UVA tomorrow. UVA is using this game to warm up for its Mason Dixon semifinal against West Chester this weekend (read more).

“That will be a tough match for us,” Archambault said. “We have seven seniors on tour, and it will be their last 15s match with Dartmouth, as we switch over to 7s at the end of tour. … After that, it’s 7s all the way through the spring season for us.”

On Friday and Saturday, Dartmouth has organized a mini-clinic with Dana Creager and Dartmouth alum Nancy Fitz (’89). When the team returns to New Hampshire, Dartmouth will ready for the Varsity 7s at Brown, Ivy 7s, and its own Dartmouth 7s on April 25.