Rugby tops Harvard at home

Men’s rugby (4-2 Ivy League) welcomed a rival Harvard side (1-4) on Saturday, aiming to improve on its Ivy League standings as it headed into the game in fourth place behind undefeated Dartmouth, Columbia and next week’s opponents: Brown. After an impressive start to its season, the team’s form has dipped somewhat, with two wins and two losses in the last four games. The Tigers returned to Rickerson Field for the first time in three weeks since beating Penn 41-7, having experienced a roller-coaster of a road trip where they edged out Yale 19-16 in a tough match before being easily dispatched 54-5 by Dartmouth, one of the best teams in the nation, and falling just short at Cornell last weekend by a score of 29-17.

The Tigers have faced a daunting slate of injuries this season with key players like juniors Forrest Hull and Jimmy Sarbanes set for a long stay on the sidelines as well as minor injuries that have not allowed important players like senior co-captain Nick Martin and junior Ali Alami to feature in a few of the games.

Martin commented on the injury situation, saying: “Going into the season, we knew that our forwards would have to step up after losing Forrest Hull and Matt Garvey to injury last spring. On top of those two losses, Jimmy Sarbanes went down in our first Ivy League game of the season. While our backs have remained relatively healthy, we have had to put some young and inexperienced players in the forwards pack, and they have performed well above expectations.”

Regardless, the team did welcome back Alami for this game against Harvard. Princeton wasted no time getting on the board, jumping to a 5-0 lead with a try in the first five minutes of the game. Harvard settled down soon after though and decreased the deficit to just two with a penalty. Senior co-captain Will Hicks had a golden opportunity to restore the deficit; however, his penalty was denied by the goalpost.

Harvard started to look more and more threatening as it moved inside Princeton territory while taking control of possession. However, it failed to capitalize on a goal-line opportunity, as an untimely drop prevented the Crimson from scoring a try for itself.

This proved to be the turning point in the game, as Princeton began to settle down and dominate possession. The Tigers added to Harvard’s woes with another unconverted try by freshman Nezim Mmegwa, who has been extremely impressive in his young career at Princeton. At halftime, the home side held a 10-3 lead.

Play didn't differ much between the halves. Princeton continued its strong first period showing after the intermission. The Tigers' dominance became evident when sophomore Furman Haynes put his mark on the game with two stellar tries. The sophomore started showing off some skill on his first score, bringing in a wayward pass with a one-handed catch en route to the goal line. Harvard was unable to mount a comeback and could only score a consolation try in the dying moments of the game as Princeton ran out 25-8 victors.

There was a serious ankle injury suffered by a Harvard forward sandwiched between Haynes’ tries, an injury the player verbally self-diagnosed as a broken ankle. This forced the game to be delayed by 20 minutes near the end of the second half.

Alami, who was given a yellow card for dissent, was delighted with the day's performance, saying: “It was definitely one of our best performances this season. I'm very proud of the whole team for bouncing back from two defeats with such an emphatic performance. We know our work is not done yet, and we are ready to finish off our season with a good result against Brown next week.”

Although delighted with the victory, Martin offered up some points of improvement for the upcoming game: “I would like to see some more continuity in open play from our side. If we can string together phases more smoothly, distributing both to our forwards and our backs, we become much more dangerous offensively. From a defensive standpoint, we would do well to cut down on penalties. We've had several penalties in recent games for high tackles, hands in the ruck and not releasing, which gives our opponents more opportunities to score.”

Princeton will look to wrap up its season in style with a victory against Brown next Saturday. Kick-off is at 11 a.m. at Rickerson Field.