M. Rugby Can't Get Past Huskies, 14-0

While the Harvard football team had only one game to play this weekend, the men's rugby team played two in the NCAA Northeastern regional tournament but lost in the final round.

Harvard beat Maryland 15-12 Friday afternoon and then had to play another game the next day. The team lost to Connecticut, 14-0, and that defeat ended the Crimson's quest for a national championship.

Coach Al Baker said Friday's game wore his team out, and players could not keep up with Connecticut's extremely physical style of play.

"Maryland was probably the strongest team in the tournament," Baker said. "We played them a man down but beat them--that was exhausting."

Several injuries, most notably to winger senior Mark Puckett, also took their toll on the team, according to sophomore winger Chris Matarese.

"Mark, who's one of our better wings, we missed his scoring touch," Matarese said. "With him we were 9-0; without him we have lost two games."

Senior Matteo Peccei said Connecticut's size also hurt the Crimson's chances.

"We played well, but they are a lot bigger than us," Peccei said, "and they had a lot of strategies that weren't really legal."

Matarese said despite the score, the game was a lot closer than indicated.

"Connecticut did not score a try [rugby's equivalent to a football touchdown] until time nearly expired," he said. "Most of their points came from penalty kicks."

In the Maryland game, Harvard rallied from a 12-8 deficit late in the game with a try by senior winger Karl Rodriguez.

"[Co-captain] Andrew Howard made an amazing no-look touch pass to Karl, who scored a try," Matarese said. "The 400 people in the stands all were amazed."

Senior kicker Chris Gordon scored the remaining points for Harvard on a penalty kick, a try, and a two-point conversion.

One minute into the Maryland game, Harvard lost the services of senior Jeff Hartranft when he was ejected with a misconduct penalty. Hartranft received this penalty for throwing a retaliatory punch, Baker said. Peccei said Hartranft's ejection left the Crimson without any real big man.

"Everyone played well, and we knew we were up against a good team," Peccei said. "We lost our only real big guy."

Peccei said that despite Harvard's loss in the tournament, the team had a much better season than he had expected.

"We were losing a lot of guys going into this year," Peccei said. "We ended up doing a lot better than we expected."

But Matarese said as the season progressed he had developed more confidence in his team and was disappointed with the second-place finish.

"I wanted to go farther and thought we had a shot," he said, "but early in the season I didn't think we'd do so well, given last year's third place national finish."