The Harvard rugby club forged ahead on its path to this month's Eastern Championships as it defeated Connecticut, 25-13, and Northeastern, 24-6, before losing to Dartmouth, 19-10, at the New England Championships in Worcester this weekend.

Yesterday, the Crimson faced the Big Green in the finals. The Dartmouth-Harvard rivalry has often been an overly aggressive one, but yesterday's game was a nice change from the vicious ones in previous years.

"It was a good, clean, even game," said Scott Hilinski. "Everyone played really well throughout the tournament. Pete Wilensky and Ben McGraw both had great games and we had superb coaching by Martin Kingston, who's been helping a lot. He's why we're here."

On Saturday, Harvard faced Northeastern, the only team to beat the Crimson in Metro League action this year.

With a little more than three minutes remaining in that game, the Crimson led, 24-6, when Hilinski was hit in the back of the head on a tackle and knocked out of action for the rest of the tournament.

After the injury, the Northeastern team erupted. The Huskie players charged the Crimson players, and threw balls at them until fights broke out. The referees called the game and awarded the Crimson with the win.