PURFC traveled to New York City Saturday October 21st to face Columbia for its penultimate Ivy game of the season. For the first time this season, there was the possibility of a B-side match since enough of the new freshmen were finally cleared to play.
The match started with an exchange of tries making the score 5-5 after just a few minutes of play. Shortly thereafter the Princeton offense hit its stride and sophomore Greg McCord went over for a try taking the score to 10-5. From this point, Princeton never looked back.
Jack Kilgallon, Christian Kazanowski and senior co-captain Mark Goldstein put Princeton on the scoreboard with tries. Sophomore flanker Jamie Denham scored two tries, as did fly half Kwame Amaning. Senior co-captain Billy Haynes earned a hat trick of tries.
The final score was 63-5 to Princeton.
Andrew Slade, playing at fullback following the leg injury early in the match to McCord, was the game’s Man of the Match for his strong all-around play and his successful assumption of the kicking duties.
The B-side players for PURFC had a game of 7-a-side rugby against one another since Columbia’s roster of 16 active players precluded any B-side play against other opposition.
One of the strangest occurrences of this year’s rugby season occurred when the team boarded the Coach USA bus to leave, following enjoying the hospitality of the Columbia team. It seemed that the bus was struck in a large ditch and was unable to get any traction. The team did what any rugby side would do, it assembled a massive scrum, but despite excellent scrummaging technique, the Coach USA bus would not be moved. A tow truck was summoned and the team passed the time by watching NY Old Blues take on Glendale on the Columbia pitch. After an hour and a half the tow truck was finally able to pull the bus out of the ditch, and the Princeton team was finally able to head home.
Thank you again to Columbia for providing the great post-match food, and best wishes for the remaining Ivy matches.
Princeton’s final Ivy game of the season is Saturday October 28th on West Windsor against the Yale Bulldogs.
