POUGHKEEPSIE, NY (October 24, 2009) -- The Vassar Women took on the cadets from West Point on this wet but warm Saturday and while there were some positives to take from the performance the home team finished a distant second. Army scored 11 tries and kicked all their conversions to win emphatically 77-5. A year ago Vassar lost 7-0 in the Northeast final four playoff but this Brewer team is young and very inexperienced and they fell off too many tackles allowing Army to cruise to this victory.
Vassar College Women 5 v United States Military Academy (Army) Women 77
Tries: Nicole Guerrero (1).
Although Army scored 2 quick tries to lead 14-0 Vassar was able to get organized and put together some decent phases of play. The scrum looked solid enough and at scrumhalf
Keri Peacock was her usual threatening self.
In defense Vassar was always going to struggle as the backs had freshmen at 10, 12, 13, and 11. Add in 4 positional changes among the backs and even when responsibilities were known players were sometimes slow to react. The Army outside center is a strong runner who picks excellent lines and she has terrorized every team she has faced. In fact, Army has averaged 69 points in their league games this season, and a good portion of those points are in number 13's account.
At the half it was 56-0 and while the result was not in question the Vassar team needed to stop missing tackles. There was some improvement in the second 40 minutes in part because Vassar made some good hits but also because Army substituted players.
There were moments for many of the players that they will be able to draw strength from as they mature.
Krissa Wiechmann made some good solid tackles while in the backs
Jansyn Thaw did well for her first game on the wing. The highlight for the team was the try scored by freshman
Nicole Guerrero. The hard tackling lock dived over and gave the loyal Vassar fans something to cheer about on an otherwise difficult day.
The strong New England Conference of 8 teams gets 5 playoff slots so Vassar will need to win next weekend on the road against the University of Connecticut to qualify. They will also probably need to score 4 tries to earn a bonus point. If the Brewers can do that then they will play a quarterfinal game on the road most likely at Cornell on November 7th, 2009. There are 2 other scenarios that could play out:- 1. A quarterfinal game on the road at Army or Brown; or 2. No playoff game at all. There is everything to play for next weekend.
Team: 15
Kate Hancock 14
Alyssa Bell 13
Laura Howard 12
Emma Backe 11
Jansyn Thaw 10
Hannah Bober 9
Keri Peacock 1 Krissa Wiechmann 2 Natalie duRivage 3
Brianna Blackwood-Mallory 4 Kim Beaudoin 5
Nicole Guerrero 6
Lucy Cantwell 7
Amanda Waterhouse 8 Mariko Yoshimura-Rank.
Next weekend: Saturday October 31, 2009 at UConn. Women KO 1:00 pm
Overall record 2009-10: 4-3-1.
