The Dartmouth Sports Weekly 10/12/15

10.12. 15

FOOTBALL BLOWS OUT YALE 35-3

WOMEN’S RUGBY BEATS PRINCETON

VOLLEYBALL WINS TWO OVER WEEKEND WEIJIA TANG, ELIZA MCDONOUGH, SEAMORE ZHU/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 2

MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2015

BY THE Dalyn Williams leads Dartmouth to 35-3 win NUMBERS

435 Passing yards by Dalyn Williams ’16 on Saturday

592 Total yards of offense for football

WEIJIA TANG/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Dartmouth started off hot against the Bulldogs, jumping out to a commanding 21-3 lead at Memorial Field by halftime.

B y ALEXANDER AGADJANIAN The Dartmouth Staff

3 Straight Ivy League wins for volleyball

18 Failed third-down conversions by Yale football on Saturday

It was the Homecoming game, Dartmouth’s Ivy League home opener and one of the most important matchups of the season that will go toward determining the Ivy League champion. With all of these circumstances in play, the football team turned Saturday afternoon’s contest against Yale University into a blowout by halftime. On the back of three different personal and school records broken by quarterback Dalyn Williams ’16, the Big Green (4-0, 2-0 Ivy) thrashed the Bulldogs (3-1, 1-1 Ivy) 35-3.

Williams continues to put together the best season by a Dartmouth quarterback in the program’s history. Williams posted a school-record 435 yards through the air, broke the school record for total career yards set by exNFL quarterback Jay Fiedler ’94 and became the first Big Green quarterback to throw for over 300 yards in three consecutive games.

Williams led Dartmouth to 592 yards of total offense, its highest tally in more than 40 years.

Katie McKay ’16 Editor-in-Chief

10. 12. 15

Luke McCann ’16 Executive Editor

Joe Clyne ’16 Henry Arndt ’16 Sports Editors

Kate Herrington ’17 Photography Editor

Justin Levine ’16 Publisher

Jessica Avitabile ’16 Executive Editor

E a rl y p e n a l t i e s, h oweve r, plagued Dartmouth’s first three possessions. Totaling 48 yards on five calls by the end of the first quarter, these miscues offset first down gains made by the Big Green through the air. It was not until the third drive of the game that Dartmouth overcame the penalty deterrents and put points on the board.

After a holding call followed two first downs, Williams quickly negated the setback with a 13yard pass to tight end Cameron Skaff ’18. Facing a similar situation after a 15-yard personal foul penalty, the quarterback found Ryan McManus ’15 — back on the field after missing two games with injury — for 23 yards and went back to McManus for another nine yards, placing Dartmouth on the Yale 13-yard line. Two plays later, Williams rolled out to his right and found Skaff alone in the back of the end zone, capping a methodical 15-play, 80-yard touchdown drive.

For Williams, the offense settled nicely into the game in large part because of better communication within the unit.

“We knew [Yale] would come out and blitz,” Williams said.

“They were basically trying to get the ball out of my hand. [We just made] adjustments on how they were playing us. We’re going out there and I’m seeing a couple of things, the receivers are seeing things differently, but you just want to get on the same page… but obviously we worked it out [later].”

The successful offensive drive also contained a key in-game improvement for the Big Green offensive line. During Dartmouth’s first two possessions of the game, the Yale pass rush heavily dis-

rupted Williams, batting down passes and making contact with the quarterback. The following Big Green drive saw much stouter play by the linemen, and as the game progressed, Williams received more and more time to stand in the pocket and comfortably execute throws.

“I think [the Yale defense] was running a bunch of twists inside, so [the offensive line] has a pretty hard job,” Williams said. “Those five guys care a lot. It’s great, and everyone’s willing to step up. They just made adjustments, they came back in and handled [the Yale pass rush] pretty well.”

Despite only holding a 7-0 edge, disparities in offensive yards (80-30) and first downs (8-2) had already developed for Dartmouth by the end of the first quarter.

The indications of the better team were there, and over the next 15 minutes of play, came to fruition on the scoreboard.

A three-and-out commenced the Big Green’s first possession in the second quarter, but on its next, Dartmouth reeled off an explosive 93-yard drive that lasted less than two minutes. Three plays after finding Brian Grove ’16 down the right sideline for a 22-yard pickup, Williams completed two contested long-pass plays — the first to McManus for 23 yards and the second to Victor Williams ’16 for 42 — to quickly put Dartmouth at the Yale four-yard line. Seconds later, Grove dove into the end zone and gave Dartmouth a 14-0 lead. During this drive, Dalyn Williams became Dartmouth’s all-time leader in total yards.

Yale finally found some offensive rhythm its next time with the ball, gaining two first downs in the same drive for the first time on the day, but faltered on a fourth down conversion attempt soon after. In the immediately following play, Dalyn Williams connected on a back shoulder throw to McManus for 41 yards to put the Big Green deep in opposing territory. To cap off another dynamic, sub-two minute drive, Williams — in the face of a big pass rush committed by the Bulldogs — shoveled the ball to Kyle Bramble ’16 right before the pressure swallowed him, which ended in a 17-yard touchdown scamper that built up a 21-point lead for Dartmouth.

Before the first half ’s conclusion, the teams exchanged the ball. After Yale linebacker Victor Egu smacked Williams on his blind side to force a fumble recovered by Yale, cornerback Vernon Harris ’16 extended at just the right time on a Yale pass to pull down an interception right near the Big Green goal line. A poor punt minutes from halftime gave quarterback Morgan Roberts and company short field position, which the Bulldogs capitalized on

WEIJIA TANG/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Dartmouth outgained Yale by over 300 total yards of offense in Saturday’s game.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2015

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

with dominant passing performance

SW 3

THE

RUNDOWN Football SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

HARVARD DARTMOUTH PRINCETON YALE BROWN PENN COLUMBIA CORNELL

2-0 2-0 1-0 1-1 0-1 0-1 0-1 0-2

4-0 4-0 4-0 3-1 2-2 1-3 1-3 0-4

Women’s Soccer

WEIJIA TANG/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

The Big Green offense put up a stunning performance against Yale University, notching nearly 600 total yards of offense in Saturday’s game.

to cut their deficit to 21-3.

By the end of the half, Williams had posted numbers that looked as though he had already played a full game. With 307 yards and two touchdowns off a 20-31 clip in the air to his name, the senior passed the ball to three different receivers for at least 60 yards and to McManus for 105 yards. While not especially sharp in having misfired on 11 throws and missing five of his first seven, Williams compensated with a multitude of big plays. Four of his throws exceeded 20 yards, and two went for more than 40 yards, gashing through a porous Yale defense on each.

On Dartmouth’s second drive of the second half, Bramble found a hole up the middle and erupted for a 54-yard run. A few plays later, one of which included another Williams-McManus connection, Williams found Skaff for a short four-yard score and the tight end’s second touchdown grab of the game. Midway through the third quarter Dartmouth led 28-3, but it felt like much more as the Big Green dominated its visitor in every facet of the game on Saturday afternoon. Toward the end of third quarter, Williams also set a career high in passing yards, eclipsing his total set in last year’s game against Yale.

Severely hampered by injuries heading into Saturday with seven players out, the Yale passing game was seemingly hurt the most, as without three of his injured receivers, Roberts could only muster up 229 yards on a massive 58 pass attempt total. The Bulldog quarterback moved the ball effectively into Dartmouth territory in the fourth quarter, but two of Yale’s most successful late drives ended with the same result — a backbreaking interception

by David Caldwell ’16.

The safety, who at one point earlier in the game had to be helped off the field because of an injury, padded

another stellar turnover margin for Dartmouth — +2 on the night, and +9 on the season — giving himself five forced turnovers and three picks in 2015.

It marked just one positive aspect of another dominant performance by the defense, which yielded only 3.1 yards per opposing play. Caldwell pointed to the defense’s mentality in explaining the turnover advantage.

“We love to run to the ball,” Caldwell said. “Pursuit, that’s another thing we preach — pursuit is one of our big keys. When you run to the ball, good things are going to happen, ball’s going to drop loose, tackles, gang-tackling, that’s what we try and do.”

Williams, who stayed in the game well after the outcome was decided, topped off the scoring on Saturday afternoon with a 36-yard strike to Houston Brown ’17 to make it 35-3, culminating the rout of the fellow Ivy power. The pass gave Williams the

school record for single-game yardage, and put his final games totals at 435 yards and four scores in the air off 2953 passing. The running game added another 143 yards, as Dartmouth outgained Yale 592 to 276 and achieved 6.9 yards per play.

For head coach Buddy Teevens, the offensive success — particularly the air attack — resulted from how his quarterback, the receivers and the offensive line reacted to and ultimately exploited the Bulldog defense. “[Yale was] pressuring, bringing five for the better part of the afternoon, and I think we held up well,” Teevens said.

“They put their secondary in a [man] matchup situation, and we matched up pretty well.”

After opening its season 4-0, Dartmouth’s dreams of winning the Ivy League championship remain alive.

The Big Green will head to Connecticut on this Saturday for its final nonconference game of the season against Central Connecticut State University.

SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

PRINCETON HARVARD CORNELL COLUMBIA YALE PENN DARTMOUTH BROWN

3-0 3-0 1-1-1 1-1-1 1-2 0-1-2 0-2-1 0-2-1

9-3 6-6-1 8-1-3 5-5-1 4-5-2 4-3-4 7-3-2 3-6-2

Men’s Soccer SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

DARTMOUTH HARVARD BROWN COLUMBIA PENN PRINCETON CORNELL YALE

2-0 2-0 1-0-1 1-1 1-1 0-1-1 0-2 0-2

6-3-1 4-4-2 5-4-1 6-2-1 2-6-1 4-3-2 1-9-1 1-9

Field Hockey SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

PENN PRINCETON HARVARD CORNELL COLUMBIA BROWN DARTMOUTH YALE

3-0 3-0 2-1 2-1 1-2 1-2 0-3 0-3

9-1 6-4 7-3 7-4 6-5 5-6 4-6 2-9

Volleyball

WEIJIA TANG/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF

Victor Williams ’16 had five catches for 91 yards, continuing his recent hot streak.

SCHOOL

IVY

OVERALL

HARVARD DARTMOUTH YALE PENN BROWN PRINCETON COLUMBIA CORNELL

4-1 4-1 3-2 3-2 2-3 2-3 2-3 0-5

8-7 7-7 8-6 9-8 8-8 7-7 4-10 4-11

THE DARTMOUTH SPORTS WEEKLY

SW 4

MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2015

Women’s rugby beats Princeton, stays undefeated in Ivy play

B y MATT YUEN The Dartmouth

In its fourth game of the season, the women’s rugby team beat Princeton University (0-2, 0-2 Ivy), launching the Big Green (3-1, 3-0 Ivy) to first place in the Ivy League as the only still undefeated team in the standings.

Tatjana Toeldte ’16 continued to lead the way for the Dartmouth offense. After scoring all of the team’s points in last weekend’s win over Brown University, Toeldte opened the scoring for the Big Green by converting a try five minutes into the match before a successful penalty kick with three minutes left to play in the half.

Yejadai Dunn ’16 added a try of her own to give Dartmouth a 13-0 lead over Princeton heading into the halftime break.

In the second half, Princeton’s All-American Jessica Lu was the only player who was able to put points on the board for the Tigers, lodging a try less than a minute into the second half and shrinking the Big Green’s lead to 13-5. Dartmouth continued to put points on the board but never fully pulled away from its Ivy League counterpart. Within a few minutes of entering her first collegiate rugby contest, Camille Johnson ’19 scored a try to give Dartmouth an 18-5 lead after 59 minutes of play. Dunn scored her second try of the affair at the 69-minute mark to increase the Big Green’s lead to 23-5, a scoreline

which remained until the end of the game.

The victory did not come easily for Dartmouth as the Big Green found itself adapting to many difficult circumstances throughout the game. At a cold 45 degrees with strong winds throughout the course of the match, handling the ball was difficult for players on both sides of the game.

“It was a windy game,” Dunn said. “Balls weren’t going straight in the line out, and we had to adapt to that.”

Despite Princeton only scoring one try, the Tigers tested Dartmouth and kept the affair close for the entire contest. During the breakdowns, Princeton played a very strong and aggressive game. Throughout the game, many Princeton players dove into the ruck after each tackle in attempts to secure the ball, making it hard for Dartmouth to retain possession.

“Princeton in the breakdowns were ferocious, so we definitely had to learn to adapt to that quickly,” head coach Katie Dowty said.

Princeton’s team also displayed great skill in handling the ball, manipulating the space on the field and running the ball down to the try line.

Throughout the game, Dartmouth had a difficult time chasing down Princeton’s players when the ball got back to the Big Green’s backline.

“They ran really well in the space, and that’s something we had to work really hard to shut down,” Toeldte

said.

Additionally, Dartmouth found itself shorthanded as team captain Kerry Conlin ’16 and Audrey Perez ’17 — two of the team’s key players — were unable to play on Saturday.

Having these two players absent from the match was a bit of a double-edged sword — the absences in the lineup allowed new players to get exposure to game settings but playing without two of the team’s core members made it harder to execute the team’s game plan. Dartmouth, however, was not the only team to have new players in the game as Princeton’s frontline had a crop of new players as well.

“Scrums were messy,” Dunn said.

“Their front row is pretty new, so it was a little different. But we tried to work on it.”

Scrums throughout the game were not as smooth as they could have been. In most of the scrums, the two teams failed to engage straight on.

As a result, there was a lot of boring during the scrums, which essentially consisted of two people outside engaging inwards on the hooker of the other team. Not only is this incredibly painful for the hookers, but it is also disrupts the flow of the scrum.

As a result of the chaotic scrums, Dartmouth found itself unable to execute its own game plan.

“We came out with a plan, but it was a bit messy,” Toeldte said. “We worked on trying to execute what we worked on in practice this week and

SEAMORE ZHU/THE DARTMOUTH

The Big Green is the final undefeated women’s rugby team left in the Ivy League.

push through some tough phases.”

Despite all of these challenging circumstances, the Big Green still came back to Hanover with the victory.

“Every game is different,” Dunn said. “You get out there play a different team and different things happen, and we try to adjust to that. It was an adapting game.”

Overall, the game against Princeton was important to the women’s rugby team not only because it was a victory, but also because it allowed the team to practice adapting to new conditions. For the Big Green,

learning more about the game and becoming more skilled in playing is at the very heart of the team.

“For us, it’s really about continuing to build on our progress every week,” Toeldte said. “We wanted to build on things we’ve been practicing last week, see if we can execute them against a team that plays differently and really focus on playing our game.”

This Saturday Dartmouth will return to the Corey Ford Rugby Clubhouse for its third-straight home Ivy League contest as the Big Green will take on perennial rivals Harvard University.

Volleyball takes two over weekend to move atop Ivy League

B y JOE CLYNE AND DANIEL LEE The Dartmouth Staff

Thanks to victories over Yale and Brown Universities at Leede Arena this weekend, the volleyball team climbed into a first-place tie with rival Harvard University for the top spot in the League. On Friday, the Big Green (7-7, 4-1 Ivy) took down one of last year’s Ivy co-champions, the Yale Bulldogs (8-6, 3-2 Ivy), by a three-sets-to-one margin. On Saturday, Dartmouth beat Brown (8-8, 2-3 Ivy) in straight sets for the Big Green’s third-straight Ivy win. Dartmouth’s win over Yale was the Big Green’s first victory against the Bulldogs since Nov. 7, 2009.

Dartmouth started strong right off the bat against Yale, opening the set on a 6-2 run thanks to strong performances by Emily Astarita ’17 and Paige Caridi ’16, who each tallied multiple kills in the opening sequence.

Dartmouth seemed to be in the catbird seat with a 17-12 lead, but the Bulldogs would not go quietly. After a 10-5 Yale run, the teams were tied at 22 apiece.

The Big Green remained steadfast and generated four set point opportunities, but was turned away by Yale each time.

Finally, two straight attack errors by

Yale gave Dartmouth the opening set by a 29-27 margin.

“We knew that Yale had a bunch of big heavy swingers and so they were going to get some of their own kills.

But if we could slow down as many balls as possible and we could get more balls up, it could definitely slow them down,” Caridi said.

The second set played out quite differently than the first. This time around, Yale controlled the pace of play from the outset. The Bulldogs opened up an 17-12 lead and stood just eight points from evening the match at one set apiece. The Big Green rallied back hard and quickly tied the match at 18. Two kills by Kaira Lujan ’16 helped Dartmouth close the set strong and move to the brink of victory with a two-set lead.

The third set was another tightly fought battle, but this time the Bulldogs would hold on for a set victory of their own. It was a tightly contested set throughout with neither team able to take a lead of more than two points throughout. Dartmouth held a 23-22 lead, just two points from a victory in the match when Yale stormed back.

A kill by Kelly Johnson followed by an attack error by Caridi and a bad set by Kayden Cook ’16 gave Yale the third

set and kept the Bulldogs’ hopes alive.

“Back in the Yale game, we were trailing by a few points here and there and everyone just looked at each other [and said] ‘Hey, we got this,’” Leonard said. “As far as team chemistry goes, it was really apparent that we all had each others’ back, and we were all in it for the team.”

Dartmouth could have collapsed under the pressure of coming so close to a victory in the match before falling in the third set. It seemed like Yale had seized the momentum as the Bulldogs jumped out to a 5-1 lead in the fourth.

A kill by Allison Brady ’16 sparked a Big Green run that eventually gave Dartmouth the match. In a blowout fourth set, Dartmouth took home the victory and took down the Bulldogs for the first time in head coach Erin Lindsey’s tenure in Hanover.

“We were going to be aggressive no matter what,” Caridi said. “It’s okay to have hitting errors, that’s totally normal in volleyball. But these games especially, we didn’t let it make us less aggressive so we were able to keep swinging and hit edges hard despite any outcomes of the balls that we were putting down.”

The Big Green kept its recent conference momentum rolling over

homecoming weekend, delivering a three-set loss to Brown the day after taking down Yale.

The match opened up with a backand-forth first set that saw the score tied on 13 separate occasions. With the score at 11-11, the Bears caught fire, taking advantage of a few Big Green miscues to go on a 7-0 run for an 18-11 lead. Dartmouth immediately responded with a 6-0 run of its own to bring the deficit back to one point and prevent the Bears from running away with the opening set.

The score remained within three points for the remainder of the set and ultimately went into sudden death as Dartmouth could not separate itself from Brown. The Big Green was finally able to string together consecutive points, winning the first set 30-28 off a service ace by Stacey Benton ’17.

After squeaking out the opening set, Dartmouth continued to create separation from Brown. The Bears kept things close for the first half of the second set, but a 5-0 Dartmouth run at 16-13 proved too much for Brown to handle. The Big Green won the set 25-17 off another service ace — this one by Zoe Leonard ’19 — putting Dartmouth one set away from sweeping its two-match homestand.

The Big Green closed out its two-set lead over Brown, winning the final set 25-18. Lujan put an exclamation mark on the strong weekend for Dartmouth by rising for a kill to win the match.

Caridi led the way for Dartmouth with five kills in the final set and 16 across the duration of the match.

“I am especially proud of how [Caridi] came on in the second set and really started attacking different angles and putting pressure on their defense,” Lindsey said in an aftergame press conference. “We also had some great performances from the middles, including some huge kills from [Lujan].”

After finishing the 2014 Ivy League season tied for sixth place with a 4-10 record, Dartmouth now sits poised with a shot at winning the Ivy League title. The Big Green is tied for first with Harvard, but holds the tiebreaker after handing the Crimson its only conference loss of the season.

Dartmouth will return to action on this Friday against Cornell University — who sits at the bottom of the league with a win-less conference season — to start its weekend trip to New York. The next day, the Big Green will square off against the three-way tied for fifth place Columbia University.