Men's Rugby: Despite slow start, Tigers notch first victory of season

While its play might not have been pretty, the men’s rugby team improved to 1-2 with a 33-22 victory over Cornell on Saturday.

The Tigers went down 5-0 in the sixth minute when the Cornell scrum-half dug the ball out of a ruck and snuck down the left sideline for a quick try.

Despite being down at home to a team that finished eighth in last year’s Ivy League tournament, Princeton struggled to play with urgency. It wasn’t until the 27th minute, when the Big Red gave up a penalty deep in its own territory, that the Tiger forward pack woke up. The forwards set up a maul and steadily drove into Cornell’s try zone before the maul collapsed, and junior scrum-half Paddy McCabe recorded the try. Going into halftime with the score tied at five, Princeton knew that it would have to raise its level of play.

Two minutes into the second half, the Princeton back line finally displayed the electrifying running that was missing from its offensive attack in losses to Yale and Harvard last weekend. Sophomore fly-half Pete Davison sprung senior outside center Matt Wong for a long run, and Wong kept the play alive by offloading to junior inside center Mitch Adwon, who was in his first game as a starter. Adwon raced across midfield before passing the ball back to a trailing Wong, who took it the rest of the way and scored just before getting dragged out of bounds by a Cornell flanker. Sophomore fullback Juan Mazzini nailed the conversion from a tough angle, lifting the Tigers to 12-5.

“Mitch ran a really good supporting line on the try,” Wong said. “He’s a natural athlete with a lot of potential.”

Princeton capitalized on this momentum to score another try off a stolen five-meter scrum in Cornell territory. The Princeton scrum battered Cornell back, and sophomore eight-man Gabriel Crouse picked up the ball to gain possession. On the next phase, junior hooker Zac Flowerman dove in for a try, igniting the home crowd. Mazzini converted again to make it 19 unanswered points for Princeton.

Comfortable with its two-score lead, Princeton regressed into the uninspired play of the first half and let Cornell reclaim the lead with 17 points over the next 10 minutes.

“At times, we definitely played down to their level,” Wong explained. “After we took the lead, we lost focus and allowed ourselves to relax. We were most successful when we slowed the game down and opened things up.”

Down 22-19 with 15 minutes to go, McCabe “opened things up” with a well-placed box kick down the left sideline to gain field position.

This set up another Flowerman try, his fifth in the last three games.

“It’s the forwards doing all of the work on those tries,” Flowerman said. “They create the opportunity, they open up the space, and I just have to put the ball down.”

Princeton sealed the win five minutes before the final whistle, when the forward pack leeched onto the end of a run by freshman wing Matt Fanelli to break through the Cornell defensive line. When Fanelli was finally dragged down, the forwards sealed the resulting ruck, allowing McCabe to score.

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“I got two gift tries from our ferocious forward pack,” said McCabe, who was playing scrum-half for the first time in place of injured sophomore Ben Tsui.

Princeton’s kicking game may have been the difference in the comeback.

Mazzini was four-for-four on conversion kicks in the second half, McCabe kept Cornell guessing with his box kicks, and Davison earned field position with his booming punts.

But it was Crouse who won man-of-the-match honors for his intensity, leadership among the forwards and execution of critical tackles and ruck clearances.

Next Saturday, Princeton plays its last home match of the regular season against Columbia, who is coming off a 30-18 upset victory over Penn. Look for senior Anthony Pasqual and freshmen Philip Halsey and Brian Fishbein, who played a big part in the “B”-side’s domination of Cornell’s “B”-side, to enter the lineup against Columbia.

“We have a lot of potential on the ‘B’-side,” junior wing Adam Nassr said. “The ‘A’-side starters are going to have to work hard this week in practice to keep their spots, and this competition leads to us becoming a better team.”