Harvard's victory in the NIRA D-I final is yet another indication of how, at times, difficult games through the season can prepare you better for success than blowouts.

It's not that Dartmouth weren't a good team, far from it, but they were shaken when things didn't go their way—shaken sufficiently to make their comeback a bit more difficult.

Dartmouth came into the match 8-0 with an average score of 47-13. Harvard came into the final 7-1-1 and an average score of 49-13, but that's misleading, because the Crimson had wins of 106-0 and 93-0. They also have scorelines of 20-20, 25-20, 18-12, and 26-19 (that last being a loss to Dartmouth).

Certainly fullback Chloe Headland embraced the idea that tough games helped, saying pressure creates diamonds. In addition, hooker Carly Lehman said, bluntly 

"It kind of gave us a lot of experience in building in tough games," said flyhalf PK Vincze. "That experience has pushed us to where we are now."

Moving Vincze to flyhalf was a bit of a game-changer for Harvard. She has been almost exclusively an outside back during her rugby career, but running the ball through her forced defenses to respect her attacking ability, and when the chances were there, she took them, scoring Harvard's second try. That try was set up by MVP of the final, Tiahna Padilla, who is another attacking player who can distribute. In fact, it was Padilla's ability to set her teammates free that secured Harvard's 19-12 win.

And another positional change also fired the Harvard win—Charlotte Gilmour was a No. 8 and was moved to loosehead prop. A powerful player with good body position, Gilmour was a big part of why Harvard caused massive problems for Dartmouth in the scrum.