Spring 2013 Report #5 – 4/15/13:
We finish tied for 9th in the nation
Princeton 17 Army 32
Princeton 17 Indiana 0
Emil Signes, Coach, Princeton Women’s Rugby
Tuesday April 16, 2013-finalrev3
Spring 2013 Schedule and Results (orange = home games)
Date Venue First XV (8-2) Second XV (3-3)
3/2/13 @ Charlottesville 26 North Carolina 10 0 UVA B 22
3/2/13 @ Charlottesville 54 Maryland 0 7 Navy B 15
3/3/13 @ Charlottesville 20 Pittsburgh 0 -VWIT SF 19 Navy B 5 (est. score)
3/3/13 @ Charlottesville 10 Navy 17 - VWIT final
3/9/13 @ DC 61 George Washington 5 7 George Washington B 5
3/20/13 @ San Diego, CA 37 San Diego Surfers B 5
3/21/13 @ Irvine, CA 13 UC Irvine A 15
3/30/13 @ Providence 49 Harvard 5 (Ivy Rugby Semifinal)
3/31/13 @ Providence 22 Brown 17 (Ivy Rugby Championship)
4/6/13 @ Princeton 15 U Penn A 14
4/13/13 @ Pittsburgh 17 Army 32
4/14/13 @ Pittsburgh 17 Indiana 0
4/20/13 @ Princeton Temple (Senior Game) Temple
THIS SATURDAY = SENIOR DAY!! PRINCETON VS. TEMPLE AT HOME 11 AM
Dear Parents and Alumni/ae:
We lost our first game to Army; after a shaky start, though, we stormed back and were dominating in the second half, too late to win but giving us confidence for our consolation match on Sunday.
By beating Indiana on Sunday we finished in what would be considered 9th through 12th in the USA (as there is no national consolation round). Besides praising the team for a job well done, I do, however, have several things to complain about regarding this weekend; read on.
-- Emil
Alignment of the Stars. The stars were not aligned in our favor. Here are a few issues we had with the event. Not to blame astrology or anything else; in the end Army deserved to beat us. Nevertheless, to vent:
Brackets. We were in a brutal bracket. Norwich – which was and remains my upset team of the tournament (well for those that know them, not really an upset), I reckoned the only team they were unlikely to beat was Penn State (maybe Stanford). And Army is always very strong. After losing to Navy last year, they refused to play us in a consolation match (perhaps at the time beneath their dignity), kind of ironic – and unfortunate - that we drew them this year.
Brown, whom we beat in Ivies, was in a bracket with UVA, Navy, and Central Florida, a clearly easier bracket (again an irony, because by beating Brown we took their #4 seed). (Not that we really could complain about this; we knew before Ivies that this is the way it would work out; we just felt that we would’ve had a great chance to win that bracket, having beaten Navy two of the last 3 times we played them, and we knew Central Florida was weak and UVA rebuilding.)
Pittsburgh. Princeton hosted one of the Rounds of 16 last year and we got rave reviews. We bid on the tournament again this year and were surprised to be passed over in favor of Pittsburgh. We were the NORTHEAST UNIVERSITY ROUND OF 16 and Pittsburgh is a MIDWEST CLUB VENUE. Why were we passed over? We were told a) we had not bid on both D-I and D-II venues, a requirement, and b) we had said we wouldn’t cover the medical portion of the requirements.
a) was simply false, we were not only prepared to do both D-I and D-II venues, we were considering applying to host two of the Round of 16 brackets because we had three fields available to us.
b) was also untrue. We filled out the form exactly the way we had done it the year before. The bid form stated that if you were not able to provide medical coverage, USA Rugby would provide it for you, at your expense. Princeton University was unwilling to provide university medical resources to cover the event, and so in 2012 USA Rugby provided the coverage at our expense. Whoever used this as a criterion to deny us the event was both unaware of the history and uninterested in following up.
Pittsburgh is a long drive (more than 6 hours once a stop to eat is figured in) and once we got there, we found that the drive from our hotel to the pitch – normally less than 10 minutes – was lengthened by a detour. According to the packet they sent out, the new driving time was 15 minutes (“don’t be confused,” the form added, “trust our directions”), but … not for a bus. Their directions required taking a road that our bus was too heavy to use, so we had to go all the way around the backside of hilly terrain, requiring a 35-minute drive. (The first time we tried it, on Friday afternoon, we didn’t know and it took us 1 hr. 45 minutes to find the venue.)
Finally, our game time was 8:30 AM. All 4 of the women’s events were shoe-horned into time slots before noon due to other events scheduled on the field at later times in the day. It was of course do-able, but we didn’t like the disrespect shown to women’s rugby championship events by that kind of scheduling. (Though – while still in whine mode – I suspect the Army women, who get up at 5:30 regularly anyway, didn’t mind. But there’s nothing in Princeton’s lifestyle that accustoms students to get up that early.)
Having said all this, if the event were held in Princeton and a) Army played the way they did, and b) we played the way we did, the results would have been the same. I will talk about the ref below, but he didn’t make a 15-point difference in the game. Two tries maybe, but that doesn’t add up to 15.
Pittsburgh, 13 April 2013. Army 32 Princeton 17. Actually, with 5 minutes to go and us on the rampage, I thought the score was 30-17, so I was still hoping we could come back to win … had that been the score, it was conceivable even at that point … the actual score was 32-17 and 3 tries were out of the question.
We couldn’t tackle their #12 (and in the course of the game, a couple other players), who scored their first try to put them ahead 5-0. A bit later, within two minutes of each other, two of our players – Nida Leeuwenburgh ‘13 and Kelsey Henderson ’15 – were yellow carded, with the result that we played 8 minutes with 13 players. Why the cards? Not rolling away in a tackle. Upon reviewing the video, we saw that Nida was rolling away as the referee was blowing his whistle – she couldn’t have done it earlier - and that Kelsey was being straddled by the Army #6, who was pretending to try to pull her out while pushing her back into the pile. There had been no warning prior to the first card; they were both ridiculous calls.
On top of that, just prior to the two yellow cards there had been two blatant obstructions by Army – Chris Ryan and I saw them on the sidelines, and we saw them again on the video.
Army scored twice during the yellow card periods, and we trailed 0-17 at half. The ref disrespected us. At one point he told us we were incredibly undisciplined. We may miss tackles and mishandle at times, but one thing we’re not is undisciplined. Later, when co-captain Olivia Garard ’13 asked him to make sure Army released when we had our hands on the ball, he responded, “You’ve got bigger fish to fry.” Disgraceful. Working so hard not to let the dam break when we were two people down certainly took a lot out of us, but did it cost us 15 points? No. Despite him, Army deserved to win.
Our three tries were from a lineout, a series of rucks (“Firestone” and “Sparta” for recent alums, both by Olivia), and a nice run into the corner by co-captain Morgan Arthur ’14.
In the other Saturday game, Norwich beat Indiana. It was 12-3 at halftime, but the gates opened in the second half, and Norwich, a military school from VT – and the USA Rugby’s national sevens champions in 2011 and 2012 – won by a big score in the end.
Pittsburgh, 14 April 2013. Princeton 17 Indiana 0. This was a nice comeback for Princeton after our Final 4 hopes were so rudely crushed on Saturday. We scored first from a displaced lineout drive scored by hooker Kelsey Henderson ‘15. It appeared Indiana had tied the game a couple minutes later when the touch judge’s flag went up. He had seen dangerous play by Indiana’s #8 and the ref took away the try and yellow carded her. (I didn’t see what she did.)
I saw Army’s big #5 get carded in their match vs. Norwich and there were more. I’ve been coaching for 40 years and I’ve never seen as many cards in an entire season as I did in four games this one weekend. Crazy.
In the second half we got another score from a displaced LO drive (Andrea Malleo ’16, R) and Lauren Rhode closed out her game (Cat Lambert came in to take her place) with a try and conversion; the try from a kick fielded by Devan Kreisberg ’13 and passed to Lauren.
I must say our front-up tackling in this game, as well as Saturday’s, left a lot to be desired, but our cover tacklers came through and kept Indiana away from our goal line.
Welcome back to Juju Obioha ’14 after too long an absence. Oh yeah, she got carded. L
Over all, a fabulous year … Congratulations to all the players and our supporters!
THIS SATURDAY = SENIOR DAY!! PRINCETON VS. TEMPLE AT HOME 11 AM
Lineups and Scoring: Rookies in Orange, Seniors/Grad in Blue
Princeton (17) vs. Army (32)
1. Olivia Garard ’13 (2T)
2. Kelsey Henderson ’15 (YC)
3. Elizabeth Sajewski ‘13
4. Lelabari Giwa-Ojuri ‘14
5. Sarah Rounsifer ‘13
6. Andrea Malleo ’16, R
7. Madeleine Karn ’13, R
8. Dot Mittow ‘14
9. Stephanie Kim ‘15
10. Lauren Rhode ‘12**16 (C)
11. Devan Kreisberg ‘13
12. Ariel Jespersen ‘13
13. Nida Leeuwenburgh ’13 (YC)
14. Kristy Giandomenico ‘14
15. Morgan Arthur ’14 (T)
Replacements:
Maddy Lea ’16, R for Devan
Abby Badura ’15, R for Nida
Juju Obioha ’14 for Madeleine
Emilie Burke ’15 for Elizabeth
Princeton (17) vs. Indiana (0)
1. Emilie Burke ’15
2. Kelsey Henderson ’15 (T)
3. Elizabeth Sajewski ‘13
4. Lelabari Giwa-Ojuri ‘14
5. Sarah Rounsifer ‘13
6. Andrea Malleo ’16, R (T)
7. Madeleine Karn ’13, R
8. Dot Mittow ‘14
9. Tzu-Yung Huang ‘15
10. Lauren Rhode ‘12**16 (T, C)
11. Devan Kreisberg ‘13
12. Ariel Jespersen ‘13
13. Nida Leeuwenburgh ‘13
14. Kristy Giandomenico ‘14
15. Morgan Arthur ‘14
Replacements:
Ozi Obi-Onuoha ’16, R
Maddy Lea ’16, R for Yung (Maddy to wing, Kristy to OC, Nida to SH)
Juju Obioha ’14 for Madeleine (YC)
Cat Lambert ’15 for Lauren
Maya Gainer ’13 for Kelsey
Individual Scoring (Orange = Rookie) (Blue = Seniors/Grad)
1st XV (8-2) scoring to date (17 different players – so far):
Name T C PK DG Pts
Lauren Rhode 6 13 2 1 65
Dot Mittow 10 2 0 0 54
Devan Kreisberg 6 0 0 0 30
Olivia Garard 5 0 0 0 25
Lelabari Giwa-Ojuri 5 0 0 0 25
Stephanie Kim 5 0 0 0 25
Morgan Arthur 2 0 0 0 10
Kristy Giandomenico2 0 0 0 10
Kelsey Henderson 2 0 0 0 10
Maddy Lea 2 0 0 0 10
Mireille Pardon 2 0 0 0 10
Elizabeth Sajewski 2 0 0 0 10
Cat Lambert 1 2 0 0 9
Emilie Burke 1 0 0 0 5
Andrea Malleo 1 0 0 0 5
Madeleine Karn 1 0 0 0 5
Sarah Rounsifer 1 0 0 0 5
Total 54 17 2 1 313
Opponents 15 4 2 0 86
22 of our 54 tries have been scored by our #8, 9 and 10. And if you count our SH as a forward (Steph plays like one), 36 of the 54 have been scored by forwards.
2nd XV (3-3) scoring to date:
VWIT individual scoring missing (from Cats’ games).
Name T C PK DG Pts
Tzu-Yung Huang 3 0 0 0 15
Cat Lambert 1 1 1 0 10
Lelabari Giwa-Ojuri 1 0 0 0 5
Maddy Lea 1 0 0 0 5
Missing (from VWIT) 4 3 0 0 26
Total 10 4 1 0 61
Opponents 13 4 1 0 76
The totals for the 2nd XV are confused by the fact that, at the VWIT – [Univ.] Virginia Women’s Invitational Tournament – the Princeton Tigers 2nd XV joined with the Pittsburgh Panthers to play as the [Pitts-ton] Cats; the totals reflect that union, but not the individual stats. It may be that all the scores for us in those games were by Pitt players; I don’t have any by the Tigers recorded.
cc: Team