The NIRA DI final is Saturday night and features Dartmouth and … Army (?). That’s right, Army.

It’s not that Army wasn’t playing well going into the semifinals, but they had not put themselves in position to be favorites. They finished the regular season 4-2-1, tying Brown (who they beat in OT but the OT didn’t count in NIRA), and losing to Dartmouth and Harvard.

That loss at Harvard by the tune of 22-7 on October 30 was Harvard’s 13th-straight 15s win at home, a streak that dated back to 2017. And it forced the Black Knights to reexamine what they were doing.

“They had done a good job stifling us,” said Army Head Coach Bill LeClerc. “They stop you and sometimes there’s a bit of an implosion on the field and that’s the worst feeling you can have on a rugby field. But it wasn’t a bad day to not have a good day. We had time.”

LeClerc and assistant coach Kaitlyn Kelly brought the players together and spent hours going through the game film. They took apart the entire game and then, with LeClerc’s urging, came up with some suggestions to change what they were doing.

“It’s tough for young players to change sometimes,” said LeClerc. “But, as one of our captains, Hope Moseley, likes to say, ‘if it’s not changing you it’s not challenging you.’”

They changed how they used good ruck ball and bad ruck ball. They found ways not to be less predictable. They found ways to handle defensive pressure.

“Harvard comes at you super, super hard and they don’t miss tackles,” said LeClerc. “And we needed to be able to handle that, not find ourselves going backwards even as we were going through phases. We needed to be smart with the ball and we needed to get off to a good start.”

Good starts have been on West Point’s mind. They fell behind early to Dartmouth and a late surge wasn’t enough. Against Brown and Harvard their opposition scored first.

So they entered a non-league game against Penn State armed with a new approach, and beat the Nittany Lions 30-10.

“We needed to be more accurate, sometimes we needed our approach to be simpler, and we needed to keep working and kind of get calluses on our hands,” said LeClerc.

They also got an emotional boost with Kahala Bandmann coming back from injury and scoring two tries against Penn State. With perhaps the best lock combination in the women’s college game in Kaylee Cargile and Naomi Colin. Cargile was a walk-on and learned her rugby solely at West Point. She’s multi-skilled and both she and Colin get go-forward and can come up with some surprise plays. No. 8 Julia Riekena has been excellent, center Sophia Linder, a freshman, is an attacking threat who LeClerc calls the “jackal queen” for her ability to poach ball in the breakdown.

With Mosely leading the way at prop and first-year scrumhalf Emma Gamboa linking it all up with quick, accurate service, they had the pieces.

They just needed to stick it all together.

And that they did. Linder scored three tries, Codi Butt’s goalkicking was key, and Sydney Schaaf added a try as Army beat Harvard in the semifinal 25-17. It was Harvard’s first home loss in15s since Dartmouth beat them in 2017.

What also helped the Black Knights was the 16th player—their fans. Friends and parents attended the game at Harvard, but also 25 cadets got passes to attend the game too. They weren’t that many, but they were loud. This Saturday, Army plays Dartmouth at West Point’s Anderson Rugby Complex, after a football game earlier in the day. There will be a vocal crowd.

“We’ll need their support,” said LeClerc. “Dartmouth is really strong. They’ve got a back three that will ruin your day really quickly. It’s great to see Lilly Durbin back for them, she’s been through a lot and she’s a great kid. Kristin Bitter is really powerful, Sophie Ragg is fast and powerful, and then they’ve got Emily Henrich doing all those things that put it together.”

And they’re 8-0. But win streaks are made to be stopped. 

“All we can do is play Army rugby,” said LeCllrc. “And hey, it’s a big game, we got to the big game, so we might as well win it.”