SPRINGFIELD, Massachusetts - The American International College women's rugby team outlasted Dartmouth College with a 33-29 victory in the first round of the National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA) national tournament on Saturday afternoon at Ronald J. Abdow Field.

After AIC previously fell to Dartmouth in its season opener on September 3, by a score of 24-22, the Yellow Jackets did not want to be on the wrong side of a close game again, and made a second-half comeback to advance to the semifinals on Friday. The Yellow Jackets improve to 4-5 on the year.

Trailing 17-14 in the second half, AIC took its first lead of the evening with a try from sophomore Anne-Laurence Harvey to push its lead to 19-17. Graduate student Anna Mbengam added a try of her own with 18:48 left in the game to push AIC's lead to 26-17.

Dartmouth came within 26-24 with under 16 minutes remaining, and regained the lead with about five minutes left to make the score 29-26 in favor of the Big Green.

Junior Kayla Clark, however, shifted AIC's fate with a try in the final minutes of the game. A conversion pushed AIC's lead to 33-29 and that would hold as the final score.

"The girls played well and stuck to the game plan that we developed," said AIC head coach Peter Lang. "We researched Dartmouth pretty well on how to shut them down. We didn't do that in the first half and it cost us, in the second half we did . but we came on strong at the end and showed some character to get the try we needed at the end."

Dartmouth jumped out to an initial 10-0 lead with 18:13 left in the first with two unanswered tries, but junior Shamira Robles answered back with a long run for a try with 15:10 left in the half to cut the score to 10-5 and the Yellow Jackets made the conversion to come within 10-7.

The Big Green extended their lead to 17-7 on a try and conversion with 7:45 left in the first, but Molly Plante had a try and AIC completed the conversion to make the score 17-14 entering halftime.

"There's lots to work on, but I'm encouraged looking forward to the semi," Lang said.