The teams that were supposed to win in the opening weekend of the women’s Ivy League did – Princeton defeated an undermanned Yale 60-0, Radcliffe shut out Columbia 34-0, and Brown beat Dartmouth 41-12.

The closest match – or rather, the one where both sides scored points – occurred in Hanover, VT. Brown is the favorite to win the league, and if they do that, they’ll have the second seed overall to the Northeast championships. The second- and third-place Ivy League finishers will take the third and fifth seeds to the NRU championships, respectively. So the fight for the remaining two seeds to regionals should shake out nicely between Dartmouth, Princeton and Radcliffe.

“We played well, although we struggled to click at certain parts,” Brown coach Kerri Heffernan said. “We lost a lot of seniors and in doing so lost a lot of experience. We have some good leadership now, but there’s this transition period when they struggle to assume the reins.”

Flyhalf Chelsea Garber did well to pick apart Dartmouth’s defense.

“Chelsea Garber is a thoughtful playmaker, and her kicking has improved greatly this year,” Dartmouth coach Deb Archambault said. “She had the best display of tactical kicking in women's college rugby that I've seen in a long while.”

Garber took advantage of Dartmouth’s back three’s positioning issues, which put wing Shakeela Faulkner into space for numerous tries. Dartmouth center Ashley Afranie-Sakyi had several explosive breakaways, but Brown did well to move the ball away from her and communicated on defense in attempts to minimize her effect. Afranie-Sakyi along with center Sabrina Amaro anchor a very young, inexperienced backline.

Brown’s backline is a little ahead of its forwards in terms of development.

“We’ve had to reshuffle our game plan, which is fun and interesting,” Heffernan said. “We have an experienced, mature backline, and our forwards are undersized. So I’ve had to think about how forwards play in a game. They did well against Dartmouth, but it’s just a different style of coaching than before.”

“We came into this match with the attitude that it would be a learning game for them, and that is exactly what it was,” Archambault said. “With this game under our belts and with this game film, we now have what we need to move ahead quickly. While I wish we could have been more prepared for this first match, I am excited to work with the team this week.”

Brown takes on Yale next weekend, while Dartmouth hosts Columbia. The game of the weekend will certainly be the third: Princeton v Radcliffe.