There were only 90 seconds left in the Ivy 7s men’s club rugby championship game. Leading up to the tournament finale, the Bears had a flawless day, defeating Harvard 31-0, Penn 31-7 and Princeton 34-0. But with less than two minutes to go in the most important match of the tournament, Bruno was trailing Dartmouth by 3.
With the fate of Ivy League glory hanging in the air, Kenyon Graham ’25 took over. Saturday saw him at his best: Over the course of the previous three games, Graham had racked up four tries. As Bruno’s final game came to a close, it was time for him to claim his fifth.
Starting an attack along the right flank, the Bears lured Dartmouth’s defense to the sideline. As Brown approached, the Big Green flocked like moths drawn to a flame, leaving Dartmouth’s defensive line unevenly stacked. Exploiting this advantage, the Bears flipped the field.
In three quick passes, Brown crossed from right to left. Theo Romero ’27 took the ball past midfield, heading straight toward Dartmouth’s last defender. Preparing for contact, Romero fed the ball to Graham just before getting tackled to the ground.
A championship hung in the air, and with just over one minute left on the clock, Graham stole the lead for Brown. All the team had to do now was hold out on defense — and for one gruesome minute, during which Dartmouth desperately pounded at the gates of their tryzone, the Bears held strong. Brown won the game 19-15, and with the victory, became the 2025 Ivy League Club Cup Champions.
“It feels absolutely incredible to be the Ivy League 7s Champions,” wrote Raphael Lansonneur ’25, one of the team’s senior stars, in an email to The Herald. “It feels like all the hard work and the long hours of training finally paid off. But what makes this win even more special is sharing it with the guys.”
“This team isn’t just a team, we’re a family,” Lansonneur continued. “We’ve been through a lot together, and to come out on top with some of my closest friends means the world. We earned this as a group, and that makes the victory so much more rewarding.”
Even before stealing the lead, the Bears had delivered an emphatic performance against the Big Green. Although Dartmouth jumped to an early two-try lead, Bruno wasn’t shaken.
“That’s the nature of sevens,” Lansonneur wrote about the early deficit. “It’s fast, it’s unpredictable and momentum can shift in an instant. We knew going into it that not every play would go our way.”
“So when we went down early, no one panicked,” Lansonneur added. “We stayed composed, stuck to our game plan and kept believing and working.”
From 75 meters out, Tito Edjua ’27 put his speed on full display and speared toward the tryzone. A Big Green defender lunged for his legs, but Edjua evaded the shoe-string tackle, maintaining his balance and tip-toeing past his other two pursuers to bring Brown within striking distance.
With time running out in the first half, Edjua scored again. From the midfield logo, he kicked the ball over the heads of Dartmouth’s defense. Tracking it down, he kicked it once more, evading defenders on his way to corral it. Finally recovering the ball, Edjua surged ahead, jumping into the tryzone for the score.
Even though Dartmouth reclaimed the lead early in the second half, Brown never gave up — and the results speak for themselves. After scoring 115 points and only allowing 22 in return, the Bears emerged as Ivy Champions. Though Graham led the team with five tries, both Edjua and Lansonneur tallied three tries each, and Leo Clayburgh GS added two of his own.
Only half an hour prior to the men’s club championship game, the women’s varsity team battled it out for third place.
“I was really impressed with the team’s grit,” Head Coach Rosalind Chou wrote about the team’s efforts to advance that far. “We were missing a number of key players this weekend, and some folks really stepped up.”
For the Bears, the story of the day was perseverance. Despite two defeats throughout the tournament — including a 31-point shutout against Dartmouth and a more competitive 26-7 loss against Harvard — the team didn’t let setbacks stop them, instead attacking the following games with renewed vigor.
“The team is great about debriefing and identifying areas in which we need to improve,” Chou wrote. “This team never gives up, and it’s great to see them be able to bounce back.”
The battle for third place took place after the loss to Harvard, and this final match proved to be the perfect opportunity for the Bears to bounce back. Taking down Princeton 24-7, Brown did just that.
Lily Nowak ’27 was first score. Stopped just shy of the tryzone, the Bears played quickly out of the ruck, launching a series of passes to spread the field horizontally. When the ball reached Nowak, she dashed for the left corner of the tryzone, outsprinting the Princeton defense for five.
Just three minutes later, superstar Akilah Cathey ’25 — who received National Intercollegiate Rugby Association first-team honors for her efforts in 2024 — made her presence known. Stopping a burgeoning Princeton attack with a strong tackle, Cathey stole the ball and plunged through the heart of the Tiger defense for a score.
On the final play of the half, Nowak doubled down. Julia Murray ’26 and Nowak headed toward the tryzone while Murray held the ball as long as possible. When she finally off-loaded to Nowak, the sophomore star ran home-free into the tryzone. Brown headed into the break with a 17-0 lead.
In the second half, the Bears continued their offensive onslaught. Three and a half minutes in, Yona Allouche ’28 joined in on the fun. Faking a pass, she got a Princeton defender to bite and took the ball herself into the tryzone for the 22-0 score. As time was running out, Princeton scored their first and only try of the game, which was, needless to say, not enough. Brown won 24-7, taking home third place.
“We knew we would be challenged with our lighter roster so we wanted to be able to play our game, tune up some things (and) build some depth,” Chou wrote. “I was absolutely impressed with how (the team) showed up today, and that’s all we could hope for.”
The team will next compete in the National 7s Collegiate Rugby Championships next weekend. The Bears will take the field as back-to-back reigning champions.
“We have learned that our systems work and when we play together as a team, we can do some really special things,” Chou concluded. “We want to build on that momentum and hopefully will have some players healthy enough to return to the roster for our national championship weekend.”
But the women aren’t the only ones about to compete on the national stage. Starting one day earlier, the men will also compete in the same championship tournament.
“Nationals has always been a tough challenge,” Lansonneur wrote. “That said, with the momentum we’ve built this season and the confidence we’ve gained, we’re definitely aiming for the title. We know it’s going to be a serious test as there are some really strong 7s programs out there, but we’re excited for the opportunity.”
Lydell Dyer is a sports editor for The Herald. A junior hailing from Bonn, Germany, Lydell is studying nonfiction English and political science, and if he's not off "making words sound pretty," you can find him lifting heavy circles at the Nelson.
