Many people know about the Princeton's men's lacrosse team. They know about the swim team, the women's lacrosse team and the men's basketball team. What many people do not know about, however, are the men's and women's rugby teams. These two squads, while competing on the club level, have consistently achieved results as high as any of Princeton's better-known sports.
Both the women and the men have known success recently, as the women have made it at least to the finals of the national tournament four out of the last seven years, taking the championship in 1995 and 1996. The men captured the Eastern Pennsylvania Rugby Union title in the fall of 2001.
The female ruggers will look to add to their recent success as they begin the Sweet Sixteen of the national tournament in Florida, April 20.
The national tournament, held annually in the spring, is the climax of the year-long season. Teams play a schedule of games in the fall all geared towards gaining the right to play in the tournament.
Princeton went undefeated in league play in the fall, earning the team the right to play American University in the quarterfinals of the Mid-Atlantic Rugby Football Union tournament for an automatic berth in the Sweet 16.
The Tigers opened up their spring season with this all-important game against American, and it could not have gone better.
Princeton sent the Eagles packing with a dominating 92-0 effort that advanced the Tigers to the semifinals of the MARFU tournament and secured one of the division's four spots in the Sweet 16.
Last weekend, Princeton took on Navy and UVA in the MARFU semifinals, and suffered what senior captain Sarah Apgar calls "two total heartbreakers."
The first game, against Navy, was tied at the end of regulation so the teams headed into an overtime period to determine who would get to the finals.
The first overtime is not sudden death in rugby, and a second extra period was needed to break the deadlock. Navy finally broke the tie in the sudden-death second overtime, advancing to the MARFU finals and ending what had been a very physical game with several injuries for the Tigers.
"They were a good team and I think we played well against them," junior captain Candace Hamilton said. "We had some temporary injuries but we'll be fine."
A depleted Princeton squad took on UVA in the consolation round Sunday, but again came up just short. After a hard-fought game the Cavaliers triumphed by one try, leaving the Tigers with fourth place in the MARFU and a seventh seed for the upcoming national tournament.
"We were missing a couple of key players on Sunday which would have helped," Apgar said. "That being said, the game showed us that we were a lot deeper than we thought we were."
The Tigers will travel to Florida to take on UMass in the first game of the single-elimination national tournament on Apr. 20. Should the Tigers make it into the Final Four, those games will be held in Minnesota in May.
Before heading south to Florida, however, Princeton will trek north to Cornell for the Ivy League championship this weekend. Because the Ivy championship is so close to the national tournament, Apgar says that the team will "use it to gain experience" and to play some people that do not always see as much time on the field.
The men's rugby team also heads north to Cornell for Ivy championships, but it does not go until April 14-15. The Ivy tournament will mark the culmination of the season for the Tigers, who barely missed qualifying for nationals last weekend when they also hosted the MARFU tournament.
After winning the EPRU title in the fall, the men put themselves in good standing for the spring season.
The Tigers opened with two wins over Millersville and Delaware before taking their MARFU qualifier over James Madison, 35-17. This did not assure them a spot in Nationals, however, as MARFU is not as strong relative to other divisions in men's rugby as it is in women's and therefore only receives three spots in the tournament.
Princeton began the MARFU tournament knowing that it had to win at least one of its games in order to qualify for Nationals. The Tigers played well against No. 2 in the nation Navy, hanging with the Midshipmen until the very end when the visitors scored a couple of late tries and ultimately won, 31-13.
Sunday Princeton lacked the effort of the day before and narrowly lost to Virginia Tech., 18-15, thus denying the team a bid to the national tournament.
With only the Ivy championships left, the Tigers are focusing all they have on taking down rival Dartmouth.
"Dartmouth has only just beaten us the last three years or so," freshman Cameron Young said. "This is the time for revenge."
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