Dartmouth Tops Group in First Day of USA 7s College Rugby Championship

Dartmouth Rugby made a strong showing for itself Saturday in Day 1 of the USA 7s College Rugby Championship (CRC), winning all of its games and in turn its group. That doesn’t mean things came easy for The Big Green however, as they had to pull off more than a few stops to earn their unblemished record. Their accomplishment was especially significant because of the quality of their group, which consisted of defending champion Utah along with two strong teams in Notre Dame and Boston College.

First up on the day were the Utes, who put Dartmouth in an early hole with two first-half tries that gave them a 12-0 lead. Dartmouth was unfazed though, with Nick Downer ‘11 breaking through the stout Utah defense to cut the deficit to 12-5 before the intermission. The Big Green would continue their comeback after halftime. Tanner Scott ’11 took advantage of a Utah penalty, coasting down the right touchline before making an offload to Chris Downer ’11 for the score. Unfortunately, the conversion was no good and Dartmouth remained behind 12-10. This problem was soon remedied as TJ Cameron ’11 took a pass 40 meters for the go-ahead score. The conversion was made thereafter and Dartmouth would hold on for a 17-12 win.

Dartmouth would have a different experience in their next game against Notre Dame, as they would come out firing early on. Chris Downer opened the scoring as he dived over the try line to give the team a 5-0 lead. An 80-meter combination between Nick Downer and Scott would double the advantage a little later, and the two would reverse the combination a few minutes after that.  With the good conversion, Dartmouth appeared to have an insurmountable 17-0 lead. However, Notre Dame would live up to their nickname, getting a try before halftime to cut the lead to 17-5 and then adding two more after the break to get a 19-17 advantage only a half-minute before the end of game. But it would be Dartmouth who got the last laugh. Muhammed Abdul-Shakoor ‘10 made a strong run to midfield before offloading the ball to Cameron, who took it the rest of the way to give Dartmouth the 24-19 victory.

The Big Green would have a much easier time of it in the final game against Boson College, easing their way to a 36-0 win. Nick Downer added three more tries to his total for the tournament, while Chris Downer, Abdul-Shakoor, and Cameron also returned to the try zone. Will Lehmann would join all of them, as he got onto the score sheet for the first time in the game.

With their perfect record, Dartmouth looks primed to make a deep run in the tournament. With group play over, they now move into the quarterfinals, where they will face Penn State. If they can win that game, which will be played at 10:41am tomorrow, they will move into the semifinals, which will be shown at 2:30 pm on Versus. If they should reach the final, they would play in it at 5:20 pm on NBC. The entire broadcast schedule for Day 2 of the CRC is listed below.

CRC 7s Broadcast Schedule

• NBC Sports live coverage from 4:00-6:00 p.m. ET
• Versus live coverage from 2:00-4:00 p.m. ET
• NBC Mobile live simulcast from 4:00-6:00 p.m. ET
• Hulu.com full event coverage available on-demand in HD quality video

If you would like more information about this topic, or to schedule an interview, please call Jeff Hopkins at (908) 403-3120 or e‐mail at jeffrey [dot] a [dot] hopkinsdartmouth [dot] edu