Poughkeepsie, NY - This was probably the result that Hofstra had anticipated last year in the Conference final but on that day Vassar prevailed. The Long Island school was keen to make amends this fall and they came out firing on all cylinders. What followed was a 40-minutes that left Vassar with a mountain to climb as the Brewers fell off tackles, gave away penalties and were slow to react to just about everything. In that first half of play the Brewers simply struggled and were off the pace.

Vassar College Men 19 v 67 Hofstra University Men
Tries: TJ Usher (1), Dimitrios Tzepos (1), Luca Pereira Frears (1).
Cons: Ben Remy (1) & Mark Gislason (1).

Hofstra came to the Farm ready to play. Their team has a host of big and athletic players and while they are prone to some optimistic passes that perhaps should have been punished they had pace and attitude in abundance.

Vassar was on the back foot early on and essentially gifted three tries to the visitors who had initially opened the scoring with a penalty kick. Twice speculative kicks bounced into the arms of on-rushing attackers as Vassar failed to deal with the kicks. At the breakdown Vassar was penalized and quick thinking by the Hofstra players allowed them to charge forward and score. 

When the Brewers did get the ball they were unable to go through any phases and gifted it back, to the now confident Hofstra contingent. Hofstra spread the ball wide and was able to move it from touchline to touchline catching the Vassar defense narrow. In acres of space the outside backs ran amok.

At the half the talk was all about getting the next score and trying to maintain possession. The Brewers did make a much better fist of the second 40-minutes and along the way Dimitrios Tzepos and Luca Pereira Frears went over but the battle was taking a toll. Vassar center Ezra Potts had already had to depart following an injury and the Brewers played with 14 when fullback was yellow carded for a high tackle. The fullback was a tad unlucky when at the start of the second half he slipped up and was carded again so Vassar had to play with 14 for the majority of the half.

There was a lot of individual effort in the second half and credit is due in particular to Ben Remy and TJ Usher who both tackled their hearts out.

In the end it was nine tries to three and Hofstra deservedly won with some excellent open field running and good ball movement along their line. For Vassar it was a bitter pill to swallow as expectations were high but valuable lessons were learned that can be absorbed over the winter and used in the future.

Team: 15 Ben Remy 14  13 Ezra Potts 12 TJ Usher 11 Zhongjia Hou 10 Ted Twit 9 Matheo Dwyer 1 Luca Pereira Frears 2 Jack Gibberd 3 Caleb DiBartolo 4 Gene Waddy 5 Max Czekaj 6 Dimitrios Tzepos 7 Mariano Decarvalho 8 Samia Jaman.
Subs: Sriram Soundarapandian for Ezra Potts, Mark Gislason for TJ Usher, Ken Kabeya for Dimitrios Tzepos, Sahaj Sharma, Rajveer Singh, Zachery Imhoff, Will Taaffee & Nico Reyes Cardoza, Anthony Koleser.
Injured: Kaiden Tocher, Owen McManus & Justin Lederer.
JYA: Kiran Mullen, Eli Schair-Rigoletti, Phil Knowlton, Gabe Slavin & Jojo Goldin.

Overall record: 10-1-0.
Conference record: 4-1-0.

Next: Spring Season 2025.