DARTMOUTH, 12, HARVARD 0
Despite the reassuring win two weekends ago in Providence R.I., Harvard faced off against a much-improved team this weekend, which gave the program an early pool play scare.
“We saw that they were not there to mess around,” Weigel said. “It definitely got our butts in gear.”
The two teams butted heads early in the game, but Dartmouth broke through first to take half on top. The game was still up in the air for much of the second half, but Dartmouth converted a late try to take the victory.
“Dartmouth came out really, really strong,” Collins said. “They had improved a lot in the last two weeks since we had last seen them. So they kind of took us by surprise and I think that we just gave them too much space on attack and they were able to make us pay.”
But the game turned out to be a wake-up call that allowed the Crimson to find its identity and helped them perform well in the bracket.
“We came out of the game with a really clear idea of what we needed to do to kind of flip the scoreboard in our favor and make really intentional adjustment for Princeton in the semi-final and then again playing Dartmouth in the final,” Collins said.
HARVARD 45, PENN 0
Playing against a lesser opponent, Harvard had its play dominated by underclassmen. Normally influential players, like freshman Delia Hellander, who scored four tries, filled up the score sheet. But the support staff for the normal starters was different.
“We started out the tournament with Columbia and Penn, which were two really good teams to get a lot of our players in who needed experience or were somewhat new and get them playing time to see what the depth of our team could do,” Weigel said.
As a team with both recruited and walk-on athletes, experience in high-level games helps a great deal in development of the entire team. Instead of claiming a blowout win with starters, which would not help development very much, the Crimson challenged its depth players to grow and adapt.
HARVARD 29, COLUMBIA 0
The first faceoff of the tournament proved little resistance for Harvard. This rang true throughout, with several early tries, leading to a 19-0 first half lead. A couple additional tries in the second period put the game out of reach.
The tournament was less about the points scored and more about the level of play in general.
“This weekend we really utilized playing to our strengths and that’s something that as we go into this next week, our last week, we’re going to remember,” Weigel said. “And for Varsities, it won’t matter who we are playing. Our main goal this season was to win Ivys and to be the best Ivy League team. And so with Varsities we have nothing to lose. We can go out there and play our hearts out and leave it all out on the field because there’s nothing after it. So there is no holding back this weekend.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following corrections.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated that Dartmouth had defeated Harvard two weeks before the 7s championship. That same version misstated that captain Maya Learned is a senior. In fact, she is a junior.
—Staff writer William Quan can be reached at william.quan@thecrimson.com.