Men's Rugby: Ruggers finish in third at Ivies

The Tigers entered the tournament as its fifth seed based on the results of last year’s Ivy championship. Princeton first squared off against Penn in what may have been the best match of the entire tournament. Though Penn had won the last three meetings between the teams — including the upset it pulled in last year’s Ivy tournament in which the sixth-seeded Quakers toppled the third-seeded Tigers 19-10 — the Orange and Black resolved to not have to make an early exit this time around.

Penn dominated in the first half, scoring 15 unanswered points. But the Tigers came out strong after the break, evening the score before the final whistle.

Though neither team scored in the first five-minute overtime period, the second overtime period featured great back-and-forth action. But the period ended with both teams recording tries, and neither was able to convert on the point after, so the second overtime ended with the score knotted at 20.

With no time left in the second overtime, sophomore hooker Zac Flowerman nearly provided the deciding score when, off a quick-tap start, he brought the ball all the way to the Penn try line. But the subsequent maul was held up in the try zone, and the second overtime period ended.

The coaches agreed to forgo normal game procedures after the second overtime period, and instead they decided to send the game into a sudden-death overtime period. But after another period of play, the teams were still deadlocked at 20.

In the fourth overtime, senior Benton Erwin placed a grubber kick into the right-hand corner of Penn’s try zone and blew past the Quakers, diving onto the ball untouched to give Princeton the 25-20 win.

“Penn started off fast with two quick scores, but we came back immediately and dominated them in the set pieces,” Flowerman explained. “Our line-outs and scrums proved to be a big determinant to the game.”

Just an hour after defeating Penn, the Tigers ran into the Dartmouth juggernaut, which had just demolished Cornell 112-0.

And the Big Green proved to be too much for the Tigers as well, as Princeton was clearly outmatched by a larger squad in its 101-0 loss. Dartmouth went on to win the championship, capping off a weekend in which it outscored opponents 275-13.

“They run a really tight ship in terms of their style of play. They make very few mistakes,” sophomore lock Zak Deschaine noted. “But playing against them was a big learning experience for us. Given our seeding in the tournament, we couldn’t have asked to do any better than we did. So we view the weekend as a huge success.”

The Tigers went to Columbia to face Yale in the extreme heat on Sunday. With temperatures nearing 90 degrees, the turf at Baker Field made fitness a decisive factor in the third-place consolation game. Adding to the drama, the annual Princeton-Yale annual match had been cancelled two weeks earlier, and so the victor of the consolation game would take the Koranda Cup. Princeton has held the cup in every year but one since its inception in 2004.

“[The field] was baking my feet,” said Flowerman, who is known by his teammates as “Toe-walker” for his unique running style. “It had a major impact on the game.”

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Beyond fitness, scrums and line-outs put the Tigers over the top in a decisive 32-14 victory. Princeton dominated the first half, scoring 24 unanswered points. Yale was shut down by an impressive Tiger defense that prevented the Bulldog attack from playing the ball wide. Taking the Yale wingers out of play crippled the Bulldog offense and allowed the Tigers to capitalize on several turnovers.

“The ice baths the night before and the morning pool workout limbered up [our] legs and gave us the energy to soundly beat Yale 32-14 and take home third place,” Erwin said. “More importantly, we retained the Koranda Cup.”

The 2009 Ivy League Championship marked the end of an era, as the Ivy League looks to fully organize conference play beginning next fall. The impact of this move is not lost on the Tigers.

“Next year, in shifting the most important part of our season from the spring to the fall with the creation of an Ivy League regular season, we will have to be more active in both training over the summer and recruiting,” sophomore tight head prop Scott Gates explained. “Ivy League rugby is a dream that has been in the works for a while, and so to play in the inaugural season makes this an exciting time to be a Princeton rugger.”