10/3/15 and 10/10/15 — Princeton Falls to Harvard and Dartmouth early in the Fall Season
Although this season began with two losses, we remain optimistic. We have a powerful forward pack and a particularly young set of backs that get better with each game. Our losses were to two varsity programs- Harvard and Dartmouth – which increases the difficulty of defeating them (pre-varsity, they were really good!). This hasn’t led us into desperation, however. Despite the varsity label, these teams are not unbeatable. In fact, we led Harvard 10-5 with 5 minutes left before a difficult loss. The Dartmouth game was also closer than the 23-5 score.
10/3/15 — Princeton vs. Harvard
After falling to the Tigers 26-15 last year, Harvard fought with a vengeance for victory today, demonstrated by their 12-point run in the dying minutes of the match and a try at the get-go in only the 4th minute. This was a disheartening opening for the Tigers and it was frustrating to play defensively in our 22 for most of the first half. However, we began to fight back with equal ferocity leading to the beautiful run by Jessica Lu which put us up on the scoreboard in the 22nd minute. At half-time, it was anyone’s game with the scoreboard at 5-5. A pep-talk from Head Coach Chris Ryan gave us the aggression needed to put more points up on the board. In the 33rd minute, Philomina Kane made a phenomenal break-away and passed it away to Allie Eakes for the try. Thanks to our new assistant coach, Phaidra Knight, our fitness was much improved and we managed to keep up the speed and pressure on the opposition well into this second half. However, we began to wane in the 75th minute and Harvard managed to snatch the win in extra time with two tries and a conversion.
10/10/15 — Princeton vs. Dartmouth
Despite our improvement from our 3-62 loss to Dartmouth last year, we were left unsatisfied with our loss today. Dartmouth played much of the offensive in the first half and the Tigers were forced to adjust to their offensive game. Despite fantastic runs towards the try line, particularly those of Philomina Kane, Jessica Lu and Gabby Gibbons, only once did we manage to get the ball down. Dartmouth used weight, strength and speed to their advantage. They used the same tactic almost every time in scoring their tries. One try arose from a blind side run out of a 5m scrum; the others from penalties after scrums in our 22, passing wide left to a player who dived over the try line. We await our next game against Dartmouth at the Ivy League Championships in early November with much anticipation!
