Brown University ties Providence College

Providence, Rhode Island - Under its new coach, ex-PRFC member Michael Cox, cross town rival PC came to Brown with several skilled players and made the Bears work for a 25 point tie in an entertaining and nail biting match. In this pre-season format, the field turf field had no posts for penalties or goals and liberal substitutions were allowed.

A poor Brown pass early on saw the ball go to deck and picked up by a PC player for a 60 meter try and an early 5-0 lead.  Brown immediately returned the favor, forcing a poor PC pass which was intercepted by center Dow Travers’12 and run for a try to even the score.  With thirteen minutes remaining in the half, fly half Zahid Jethani’13 had to come off with an injury, replaced by freshman Ryan Jones.

Twenty nine minutes in, PC was on the board again upping the score 10-5.  Brown could not find its shape, allowing the Friars to control the tempo for the rest of the first half.  Two well executed PC rucks saw the ball go to their fullback, their most dangerous runner, who scored, increasing the PC lead to 15-5.  As the half was about to end, the back line defense of Brown had already checked out.  PC moved the ball well to the outside and were able run in the final points of the half for a 20-5 advantage.

With the halftime conversation being about shape and structure, Brown came out much improved.  Eight minutes in, Brown took possession from a lineout and worked the ball patiently through 6 phases of play until Travers eventually broke under the defense and put the first 5 points of the half in for Brown. Three minutes later, wing James McGinn’12 clearly outpaced the defense to the corner of the goal but was unlucky to be pushed into touch for what could have been a try. 

Continued pressure by Brown forced PC to kick out of their 22.  The ball, not finding touch, found recent football cross-over Chris Lamar’11.  A 20 meter run drew enough defenders to allow his pass to go to wing Sam Rabb’11 who outpaced 4 defenders to find the try zone and close the margin to 5 points. 

Providence, under pressure again, missed touch only to find the hands of McGinn.  With the PC backline desperately trying to cut the angle on McGinn, James executed a well timed switch pass with fullback RL Powell’11.  The ensuing ruck ball was quickly moved to prop Andrew Alvarez’11, coming at full pace.  Multiple defenders converged only to see this prop pass the ball to fellow front row and hooker Danny Levine-Spound’12 whose power and pace was too much for the PC defense.  Brown had now leveled the score at 20 all. 

With all of this Brown momentum, a mistake couldn’t happen, but did. Brown, with control of the lineout on its own 10 meter line, made the wrong call.  PC immediately took ball possession and scored to go up 25-20.  The last 10 minutes saw some great ball movement by Brown.  A 50 meter pick up at the back of the scrum by #8 Brent Zajackowski’12 and a great break by Powell with an offload to James McGinn both could have ended in points.  But it was at the 80th minute of the game that the forwards were able to take a simple lineout and drive 10 meters for flanker Chaney Harrison’s’11 game ending score.  

The match referee was Phil Griffiths