Rugby Drops 26-15 Decision at Princeton

Fresh off of two Ivy League victories, the Harvard women’s rugby team traveled to Princeton intending to continue its streak. But the Tigers (2-1, 2-1 Ivy) outscored the Crimson (2-2, 2-2 Ivy) 19-5 in the second half to overcome an early deficit and take the game, 26-15.

For Harvard, the loss bore many similarities to last year’s away game at Dartmouth. On that day, the Crimson failed to find its rhythm or generate its offense and suffered a 10-5 loss to the Big Green.

“Both games exposed the weakness that emerges when we don’t play to our full capacity,” co-captain Brooke Kantor said. “Both demonstrated that we have to be on our game at all times.”

Princeton put Harvard on its heels in the first half, scoring a try and conversion to jump out to an early 7-0 lead.

The Crimson responded. Senior full-back Aniebiet Abasi dodged five defenders on a 60 meter sprint up the sidelines to bring Harvard within two points. After a penalty was called against the Tigers, sophomore center Claire Collins scored a try to give the Crimson a 10-7 advantage going into halftime.

Last season, Harvard rallied for 21 points in the second half to shutout Princeton 36-0 and solidify its spot in the Ivy semifinal. In the second half of this game, that explosive offense never arrived.

“We didn’t play to our level, which was simply disappointing,” Kantor said. “We got frazzled and we didn’t play our game plan.”

The Tigers came out and scored two tries and two conversions early in the second half to take the lead, 21-7.

Although Abasi added a diving try to bring the score to 21-15, Princeton won the ball off a Crimson scrum and scored its third try of the half to pull away, 26-15.

Harvard has its work cut out next weekend when the team returns home to face Dartmouth in its most anticipated game of the season. The Big Green defeated the Tigers 63-3 earlier this fall and is seeking revenge for last year’s loss to the Crimson in the Ivy League Championship.

Kantor insists that the team needs to remember what is listed in the International Rugby Board rule book—the goal of rugby is to score as many points as possible.

“It doesn’t matter what the score is, it doesn’t matter what the standings are, our goal in that very moment is to score as many points as we can and to work as hard as we can to do that,” Kantor said. “So despite the external pressures that might be there from the standings, I think that we have to approach [Dartmouth] as an isolated game, ten minutes at a time, with our goal just to score as much as we can.”

—Staff writer Eileen Storey can be reached at eileen.storey@thecrimson.com.