It was only a friendly, but whenever Virginia Women’s Rugby (UVA) and North Carolina play each other, the game is of interest. They’re two of the consistently strong DI teams in the Mid-Atlantic and are favorites to meet in the Mason-Dixon conference final this spring. The pair also shared in sobering losses to Lindenwood earlier in the month, and Saturday’s game served as insight into the teams’ relative recovery.

UVA was in better shape and treated its hometown crowd to a 57-14 win. Wing Joy Jefferson scored a hat trick in the first half, and the rest of the tries spread out between Summer Harris-Jones, Luma Abunimer, Frankie Beller, Kaleigh Brown, and Hannah Turley. Abunimer handled the kicking duties. UNC’s tries came from Tanya Houston and Naya Tapper, and Tee Whitworth kicked the extras.

“We learned a lot from our loss to Lindenwood, and have set to strengthening up what were weaknesses,” UVA coach Nancy Kechner explained. “Basically, we played great defense. We know they use Naya Tapper as their main striker so we made sure our fastest flanker, Liz Anderson, was on her. We scored mostly on turnovers, as they weren’t careful with the ball.”

The game didn’t evolve without setbacks, as All American prop Christy Haney left the game early due to injury. As one of only two seniors on the pitch, Haney’s absence was immediately felt; however, Kechner was pleased how the young pack rallied without her. Fellow senior Brown, who replaced All American Bri Kim at scrumhalf, did well to direct the forwards.

“We varied our attack, and set out to run their big forwards to tiredness,” Kechner added. “That worked, as they were massive.”

That opened up even more room for Jefferson and outside center Harris-Jones, both of whom had great games with ball in hand.

“It was a nice win for us, and got the monkey off our back since we haven¹t beaten them in a couple years in real [non-tournament] matches,” Kechner said. “We expect a really physical game in our matrix match next season.”

UVA, which won its first matrix match 107-14 against East Carolina on Oct. 17, plays James Madison in a cross-conference friendly this weekend. On Nov. 7, the team will contest its second league game against Virginia Tech. UNC plays a friendly against women’s club Raleigh Venom this weekend and will inaugurate league season on Nov. 14 against Virginia Tech.