Player Spotlight - Calvin Gentry
The USA Rugby South’s victory at the Rugby Americas North U19 Championship was certainly in doubt going into the final, but the players had faith.
One of those players knew exactly what had gone wrong in the second pool-play game against Trinidad & Tobago - a game the South won by one point - and was confident the Panthers could rebound.
“We went into that Trinidad game with a game plan, but they came in with a plan too,” said Calvin Gentry, the Memphis-based center who was a powerful presence for the South in the final against Mexico. “We wanted to hit them real hard. Our defense was the biggest thing. But when we got close to them they kicked the ball over our heads. We had to spend all the game chasing back.”
Mira Cosa Impresses v Welsh Tourists
The 2016 Mira Costa Rugby team finally completed a very long and extremely successful season last night at home vs. Ysgol Bro Gwaun High School from Fishguard, Wales.
It was an exciting clash between the two teams that knew nothing of each other, until this weekend's game.
HS Boys 2015-16 Awards
It's time to finish recognizing the thrilling 2015-16 Boys HS rugby season.
With the major select-side events done, we can finalize our picks and note. We're probably missed someone or something - sorry, there's just too much out there! But we've done our best. We have already picked our player of the season, and spoke to our pick for best forward earlier, so we've got links to those articles.
Here are more of our picks:
Team of the Year: Gonzaga.
Boys HS Player of the Year - Keanu Andrade
The reason you won’t see his name on various major all-star and select side rosters is that he’s carrying an injury, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t influential this season.
Our 2015-16 Boys HS Player of the Season helped lead the Danville Oaks to a championships in the NorCal Varsity Premier, and a 3-0 record and a championship at the Pacific Cup. How good was Danville? Well, one of the teams they beat out for the NorCal title won the Boys HS Rugby National Championship club division (Granite Bay), and another, Jesuit, finished 2nd in the single-school division by a single point.
So when we say that Keanu Andrade was a leading player for a leading team, we mean it. The spark plug scrumhalf was the MVP of the Pacific Cup, and the go-to leader on a team of leaders.
Player Spotlight - Jonas Petrakopoulos
It’s been a wild and interesting year for Jonas Petrakopoulos, and there is certainly more interesting things to come.
The Dutch-American rugby player from Indiana with the Greek name, Petrakopoulos played for the Netherlands Under-18 team earlier this year, won a state and Midwest championship with Royal Irish, and then he capped off the first half of the year with a trip to Ontario with the HS All American team.
The big, powerful prop qualifies for both the USA and the Netherlands - he was born in Amsterdam but his parents are both American citizens. Playing for Royal Irish he’s seen plenty of high-level rugby, and when the opportunity arose for him to play for the Dutch national age-grade team. He did that in March.
DMV Wins Surfside U19 7s
It was a weekend of surprises at the U19 bracket of the Surfside 7s in New Jersey.
DMV (formerly having competed as the Maryland Exiles) sent two teams to the event in Stone Harbor, NJ. There was an older team of experienced players, and a DMV 2 team, made up of younger players.
In the end, it was the younger kids who came out on top … of everyone.
The DMV 1 squad consisted of recently graduated seniors and that group won last year’s Surfside 7s, although they were missing a couple of players from the outfit that made the semis of the Las Vegas Invitational.
DMV 2, meanwhile, was made up of rising sophomores, but many had helped the Exiles win the HSRC in Chester, Pa. in June.
Harrow Continues Winning Ways in Cali
The Harrow School is on tour in the USA working with Varsity Travel and continued their winning ways in California.
The storied English school players a Northern California all-star team this past week and won 49-10. It was a good performance from the NorCal squad in that they actually scored on Harrow, and in fact it was relatively close at halftime. This despite the fact that the NorCal team had some players touring with the HS All Americans, and were missing a few other previous starters.
EIRA Player of the Week - Nafi Maafu
It’s hard to think of a turning point in the HS All American tour of British Columbia, given the score lines, but if there is one, it came at the end of the first half of the first game.
At the time, the HSAA team was ahead, having dominated field position for most of the first 30 minutes. But, they had only two tries to show for it, and had just escaped a prime scoring opportunity for the BC U18s. Perhaps in danger of ending the half not quite in control of the match, the Americans got a boost thanks to a brilliant individual effort from Nafitalai Maafu.
Maafu is a lock who plays for Tempe, a HS team that has had to merge with another team each of the last two years due to low numbers. But the tall, athletic second row is something special.
EIRA U16s Beat BC Again
The Eagle Impact Rugby Academy U16s finished off a tough and very educational trip to British Columbia with a second difficult win over the BC U16s.
The EIRA U16s won 39-17 Wednesday in a game where they trailed for a period in the first half. In Saturday’s game on the campus of the University of British Columbia, the EIRA players were once again in a bit of a dogfight.
“You always want to play a wide, expansive game,” said EIRA U16s Coach John Banarhall, “but this one was a grinder. It was tough, but we’ll take the win.”
South Panthers Win RAN u19 Championship
USA Rugby South shocked Mexico to win the Rugby Americas North U19 championship Saturday.
The Panthers went into the game having just escaped a very athletic Trinidad & Tobago team, while Mexico, the defending champions, had made it comfortably through pool play.
But the South team showcased much more intelligent play than they did against T&T, securing possession, and holding onto it despite some very physical Serpientes defense.
It didn’t hurt that the Panthers scored right off the kickoff - Mexico was penalized in the ruck and wing Sean O’Driscoll slotted the kick for a 3-0 lead.
EIRA U17s Complete BC Sweep
The Eagle Impact Rugby Academy U17s completed a two-game sweep of the British Columbia U17s with a 38-7 defeat of their hosts Saturday at the campus of the University of British Columbia.
EIRA U17s beat BC U17s 58-17 on Wednesday in a game that was impressive in terms of their ball movement, but also featured a couple of BC scores the tourists would have liked back.
"We probably got away with some stuff because we were dominating contact," EIRA U17s Coach Brendan Keane said about the first game. "And we were a bit lazy on the weak side and we didn't fix that process and they took advantage of it. But we told them to enjoy the game, enjoy cheering the other teams on, and then back to training."
The work, then, was on not giving up soft tries, and they did that, holding BC to just the one score.
South Panthers Look to RAN Final
The USA South Men's U19 team has a tough task ahead of it Saturday as the Panthers take on Mexico in the Rugby Americas North final.
The Panthers needed some late-game heroics to edged Trinidad & Tobago by a single point on Wednesday. Mexico, meanwhile, Mexico thrashed Turks & Caicos and then beat Cayman Islands 26-10 Wednesday to have a somewhat easier path to the final.
For South Head Coach Mark Williams, the 24-23 win over T&T was too close for comfort.
"We were our own worst enemy," Williams told Goff Rugby Report. "In the first half we would dominate a few phases then turn over the ball. Special teams was horrible. Trinidad were patient and played smarter rugby than us."
EIRA U16s Learn Lessons Quickly
The Eagle Impact Rugby Academy players have essentially come out of nowhere to form a team. Few have enjoyed much press, even in these pages, and that’s because they are young and learning.
But another interesting aspect is that the players are coming from a variety of programs. We spoke with three players, of which one, flyhalf Sean Nolan, is from a major championship team - Back Bay.
The team captain, Kai Carlberg, players for the Springfield Junior Celts in Illinois. Austin Arnett, who showed up to play center and started instead at openside flanker, players for the Tribe in Tennessee.
Durham over EIRA NY
The Durham school out of Britain defeated the Eagle Impact Rugby Academy NY team 54-20 Wednesday night.
Despite the EIRA team being successful in tight and having the run of play in the scrums, Durham was more cohesive, faster with the ball, and more skills, punishing EIRA out wide. With Durham having been together all season and finishing off a successful tour of North America, and the EIRA group having just assembled, unity of purpose was always going to be the difference.
Durham showcased some serious talent, including some England age-grade players, but it was their teamwork and speed of play, not one or two stars, that saw them win.
The Durham coaches singled out four EIRA players as standouts on the evening - wing Justin Johnson (Pelham HS), scrumhalf Luke Persanis (Pelham HS), center Luke Salls (Simsbury), and prop Peter Reyes (Xavier HS).
EIRA U17s - All About the Experience
After the Eagle Impact Rugby Academy U17s hammered the British Columbia U17s 58-17 Wednesday and look for a repeat performance at the campus UBC on Saturday.
Or maybe better than a repeat. Players and coaches quickly pointed to things they’d like to do better.
“In the first half we played a little slow,” said Jesuit (Sacramento) flanker Garrett Kay. “We want to play fast and then bust it up the middle. We started to do that better.”
