Men’s Rugby Makes Sweet Sixteen

For the first time in nine years, the Harvard Men’s Rugby team will travel to Virginia Beach this April to compete in the prestigious national Sweet Sixteen tournament.

This distinction comes after years of “mediocrity” for the club team, according to the team’s President Jim “Ragu” J. Marett.

“Because of the development and improvement in rugby programs throughout the country over the past 15 years, it’s possible that this team is Harvard’s best team ever,” he said.

Marett said he attributes the team’s increased success in large part to a strong group of first-years and sophomores.

The team clinched the win that will send them to the tournament—an annual event reserved for the 16 best teams from each region—in a 35-15 victory this weekend against Norwich University.

“We’re glad to be able to rise to the level that teams in the past have attained,” Marett said.

In the first half of Saturday’s game, odds were against the rugby team as they

trailed Norwich 12 to five.

But the team came out stronger in the second half to tie the game at 15, carrying on the momentum to score 19 more points and win the game.

“In the first half we were complacent,” Tim R. Naylor ’06 said. “They were bigger and stronger, but we were quicker and more skilled. In the second half we came out fired up and ready to play, and our fitness really carried us through the last twenty minutes of the game,” he said.

Saturday’s victory came after a strong regular season record of six wins and only one loss. Last week, the team beat Vassar 51-5 to advance to the final four round of the playoffs in the New England Rugby Football Union along with Dartmouth, Army and Norwich.

“We went to the playoffs last year, but lost to UConn,” Marett said. “This year we really wanted to build on that and make it further.”

Harvard went on to play Army on Sunday, but came up short, losing 34-14.

Both the Harvard and the Army team will travel to the Sweet Sixteen this spring.

“Our mistakes in Sunday’s game kind of sunk us, but if we see them in the spring, we’ll be ready,” Marett said.

For now, the team only has one more game in the fall season, competing against Yale during Harvard-Yale Weekend.

Team members said that when the season ends, they will continue to lift and play in a number of tournaments in preparation for the spring competition.

“We’ve put in too much work to be satisfied with simply challenging the best teams in the country, and when the tournament rolls around this spring, we’re going to surprise anyone who looks at our success as some sort of fluke,” captain Jacob A. Kersey ’03 wrote in an e-mail.