Fall sports highlights

David Schamis ’95

Running back Josh Pitsenberger ’26, next year’s captain of the football team, ran 39 yards for a touchdown at The Game. View full image

David Schamis ’95

Running back Josh Pitsenberger ’26, next year’s captain of the football team, ran 39 yards for a touchdown at The Game. View full image

Sam Rubin ’95

The women’s cross country team won its first ECAC title since 2003. Cara Joyce ’26 and Daniella Henderson ’27 contributed to the team’s third-place finish at the Ivy Heptagonals. View full image

Sam Rubin ’95

The women’s cross country team won its first ECAC title since 2003. Cara Joyce ’26 and Daniella Henderson ’27 contributed to the team’s third-place finish at the Ivy Heptagonals. View full image

Football
Coming into the 140th playing of The Game, held in Cambridge on a soggy, overcast afternoon with gusty winds, a ranked Harvard team had already locked up a share of the Ivy crown, while heartbreaking close losses to Dartmouth and Columbia knocked Yale out of contention for their third straight title.

But this was in no way an uncompetitive Yale team. They had perhaps the Ivy League’s most potent offense, and a defense with a knack for creating turnovers. “We had some meetings with the senior class after some of those tough losses, and it was just unreal the amount of alignment that came out of those meetings,” said captain Dean Shaffer ’25 before The Game. “It was like, ‘All right, here’s what happened, here’s what needs to happen moving forward.’ The amount of cohesion in the group was fantastic.” That cohesion was on full display as Yale beat Harvard for the third straight year, 34–29, despite a Crimson surge late that kept things interesting for the 27,000 fans on hand.

Yale generated over 500 yards of offense for the third time this season, as go-to running back Josh Pitsenberger ’26 and wide receiver David Pantelis ’25 each tallied over 100 yards. In perhaps the play of The Game, Pitsenberger caught a short pass near the boundary from quarterback Grant Jordan ’25, and then ran cross-field 39 yards, weaving through defenders to the end zone. “Once I caught it, I had about 10 yards of open field down the sideline. I could feel the secondary overflowing, so I made one defender miss, then cut back across the field behind my blockers all the way to the end zone,” says Pitsenberger. “It was an unbelievable moment—one I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

Meanwhile, as promised, defense and special teams shone with game-changing plays, recovering a fumble, blocking a punt, and notching five sacks. And on Harvard’s opening drive of the third quarter, Abu Kamara ’27, a first-team All-Ivy selection who entered the game as the FCS leader in solo tackles per game, intercepted Harvard quarterback Jaden Craig and ran 35 yards for a touchdown.

That was the beginning of an entertaining second half where Harvard threatened, but never overtook the Bulldogs. Harvard scored with 18 seconds left to cut Yale’s lead to 5, but Yale recovered the ensuing onside kick to fully seal the win. “What made this year’s win particularly special was that it wasn’t just about chasing a ring,” says Pitsenberger, who was named next year’s captain the following day. “We entered that game confident in our identity as a team and determined to give it everything we had. It was about wanting that win more than anything else, and it showed.”

It’s the first time Yale has won three straight against Harvard since 2000, and, in a remarkable turnaround from a 15-year stretch where Yale won only once, the Bulldogs have now taken six of the last eight. (The win also forced Harvard to share the Ivy title with Dartmouth and Columbia.)

As of this season, head coach Tony Reno has the second most wins in Yale football history—behind only the legendary Carm Cozza—a fitting honor for the man behind one of the most successful decades in Yale football history. “I’ve never been around a coach that has just been able to facilitate and foster relationships on a team like Coach Reno has,” said Jordan.

Cross country
“Nasty, brutish, and short” isn’t a phrase usually attributed to the college cross country season, but perhaps it should be. This year, the Yale women raced just three times before facing down a trifecta of big meets: the ECAC championship, the Ivy Heptagonals, and the NCAA Regionals. The fall season is over before you know it, but the limited schedule is not without purpose. “There are only so many races where you can really go to the well and give it everything before injury and fatigue start to take their toll,” says Claire Archer ’26, Yale’s top runner. “It’s definitely a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity for the team to focus on quality over quantity.”

For the Bulldogs, this focused approach paid dividends. The women’s team dominated ECACs, placing all five scoring racers in the top 20 to claim their first title since 2003. They carried that momentum into Heps, where they improved from last year’s sixth place finish to take third. The men’s team found similar success, placing 5th at NCAA Regionals—their best result in 20 years. “For the program, it’s a sign we can compete at the highest levels,” says Archer. Her individual performances showed the power of peaking at the right time: she set a new 6K personal best in three of her last four races, culminating in all-region honors from USA Track and Field.

Volleyball
For the first time since the Ivy League revived its postseason volleyball tournament in 2022, Yale did not have the privilege of hosting. Princeton and Yale both finished the year with 12–2 conference records, but the Tigers took the tiebreaker and the home-court advantage. That didn’t stop Yale from dominating Cornell and then Princeton to earn the Ivy slot in the NCAA Tournament for the third straight year.

“Our coaching staff came up with great game plans for the conference tournament which allowed us to play our game,” says Betsy Goodenow ’27, a first-team All-Ivy selection who was named outstanding player of the tournament. “This year was really about taking control of games and not letting other teams dictate how we play.”

In their NCAA first-round game in State College, Pennsylvania, Yale faced North Carolina in the first-ever matchup between the Bulldogs and the Tar Heels. The teams came into the game just nine spots apart in the official rankings, giving Yale a good chance at its first NCAA win since 2008. But after taking the first set, Yale dropped the next three to North Carolina to fall 3–1.

The Bulldogs finished with a 19–6 record, their 22nd consecutive winning season. Coach Erin Appleman’s dynasty has run so long that her daughter Emma, an infant during Appleman’s first season in 2003, appeared in the NCAA Tournament this year as a senior at the College of Charleston.