Albany Wins in the Sun!

Albany vs. Boston
Boston, MA

Albany 46 - Boston 24
April 30, 2011

Albany's fifth game of the spring season saw them take a road trip to Boston to take on what will be one of their DI rivals for the fall, Boston Women. The weather decide to give us a break this weekend and while no sun tans were had, at least it wasn't raining and miserably cold and the pitch wasn't a mud pit. A short and wide field meant anyone who broke the line were going to gain some significant ground. And that's exactly what happened for the first try of the match as Albany opened up dominating possession but a handling error in the backs provided Boston the turnover ball that they quickly put in the hands of their fullback and she was gone. Just like that Albany was down 7-0 with only 3 minutes in, welcome to Division 1.
 Fortunately Albany came to play- despite a couple of starters getting lost and to the field late (classic). Anyway back to the game,,, Albany kept up the same offensive pressure displayed in the first minutes of the game and as a result Nicole Vidro got Albany within 2 points when she scored a try 3 minutes later. Both teams settled into the game at this point and the score remained at 7-5 for the next 20 minutes. JoAnne Kos gave Albany their first lead of the game at the 26 minute mark in with a nice drop-kick. Having the lead in the game seemed to give Albany a boost and the next 10 minutes saw Albany score 2 more tries and 2 conversions to build their lead to 22-7. Scoring for the half concluded when Boston ran in a try to bring the lead down to 8 points (22-14 at the half).
 Boston took the break at half-time to regroup and quickly turned the tide when play resumed by scoring 2 minutes into the half and cut Albany's lead down to 3 with over 30 minutes to play. Determined not to let Boston regain the lead, scrumhalf Kristin Bonomo utilized the hard work put in the forwards to score a try at 11:25 and the Kos conversion gave Albany a 10 point lead. At this point in the game Albany's consistent pressure started to pay dividends. Albany tacked on 17 more points in the following 20 minutes in the form of two tries, two conversions and a drop goal. The drop goal came at the end of a 10 minute period that seemed like one scrum down after another. Albany threatened to score multiple times during this stretch but Boston held firm and it was pretty much a stalemate 5 meters out from Boston's try zone until JoAnne decided to put both team's forwards out of their misery with her drop goal. This gave Albany a comfortable lead with less than 5 minutes to go, 46-19. Boston went down fighting and showed a lot fo heart by scoring a try to close out the game in injury time. Final score 46-24.
Scoring line: JoAnne Kos, 2 drop kicks, 5 conversions; Kristin Bonomo, 2 tries; Nicole Vidro, 2 tries; Alicia Backus, 1 try; Angie Craig, 1 try
MVPs: Angie Craig and Rachel Start