Princeton Women Win the Ivies

The Princeton Lady Tigers are Ivy Rugby Conference Champions!

For the first time since 2005, the Princeton women have won the Ivy Championship. The Princeton Lady Tigers defeated Brown University by a score of 22-17 to become Ivy Rugby Conference champions.

In their regular season match-up just last fall, Brown handled Princeton 33-5 in a match that was touted at the time as between the best in the Ivies. It was Brown who suffocated Princeton defensively and out paced the Tigers on the edges last fall and entered last weekend's contest as the favorites for the championship.

Princeton used the maximum 22 players in the semi-final on Saturday against Harvard, in a 49-5 victory, but had an “Iron XV” in the final vs. Brown. When asked why the change on Sunday, Princeton women's head coach Emil Signes replied, "we didn’t make a sub in the entire game, not that we couldn’t have, but we reached a stage when I reckoned we were going to metaphorically live or die with that lineup."

Next week Princeton will play Penn at home. On April 13th, Princeton will play in the US Round of 16 (the NCAA won’t let rugby officially call it the “Sweet Sixteen,” but that’s basically what it is) in Pittsburgh. It is the 5th time for Princeton in the round of 16 in the 10 years Emil Signes has been at the helm. The Brown women received an at-large bid to play in the US Round of 16 and will be traveling to Annapolis, MD to play host Navy on April 13th.

Ivy Rugby Conference Championship Match Results

Princeton University 22 - Brown University 17 (Princeton Ivy Champions)
Dartmouth College 20 - Harvard University 12 (3rd place)
Princeton University 49 - Harvard University 5
Brown University 47 - Dartmouth College 10