M. Rugby Captures Beanpot

The Harvard men's Rugby Foot ball Club stormed past Northeastern, 28-3, in last Saturday's afternoon final of the Rugby Beanpot at Soldier's Field Park.

The Crimson dominated the Huskies and the rest of the weakened field throughout, gaining its third tournament title of the 1991 spring season. Harvard had already earned the Ivy title and New England title, with wins over Brown and Holy Cross in the respective tournament championship matches.

"It was a nice cap to the season," Forward Captain Soren Oberg said. "We showed our dominance in the Boston area."

In both the Ivy and New England tourneys, Brown was able to put up a fight, falling to the Crimson, 9-6, each time. The Huskies, however, could only start fights--Northeastern tallied only a single three-point penalty kick in 60 minutes of play.

Revenge

One year ago, Northeastern stunned the Crimson with a late score, toppling the heavily favored Harvard squad.

"It was kind of surprising we lost to [Northeastern] last year," Club President John Nowaczyk said. "They were already slipping last spring, and they were terrible this fall."

The Huskies slipped by Boston College in the morning semifinal, 6-0, but the Crimson, in Rose's words, "killed them."

The execution was helped right along by senior wing Steve Cohn's two tries. Scrum half Andy Howard and prop Chris Geary each scored one more point than the entire Northeastern team did with its solitary tallies.

And Harvard's resident "bigfoot," Andrew Pinkerton--who sat out the morning semifinal against the Terriers--notched 12 points personally on a trio of conversions and a pair of kicks.

This was enough to finish off the best of what Nowaczyk called a "surprisingly weakened field." The club president admitted the scores should have been even more lopsided.

No Bark, No Bite

Northeastern's three points were three more points than defenseless Boston University rang up against the Crimson in the semifinal. Harvard whitewashed the Terriers, 29-0, behind fullback Lauren Rose's trio of tries.

B.U. fielded a much weaker squad than its fall edition. In two meetings last autumn, the Terriers outlasted the Crimson twice, including a 25-19 triple-overtime victory in the New England playoffs.

But injuries and the loss of stars damaged B.U.'s chances. Aside from missing a couple of starters to injuries, the Terriers had sent half a dozen of their top players to Philadelphia to play with the New England select squad, coached by Harvard Coach Martyn Kingston.

Numerous Crimson players were also invited to participate in the selection process, but decided to remain in Cambridge and use the spring tournaments as their preparation.

"B.U. definitely had some key players away," Oberg said.