GRR HS Club Rankings Week 6
With Southern California taking a bit of a week off due to the LA Sevens, and North Carolina gearing up now for their club season with the Carolina Ruggerfest this coming weekend, many of the top-ranked teams were idle.
We do see a few of those ranked in the teens move up, and that's natural as they play and beat good opponents—Okapi won well over Gibbons, SFGG beat a tough Wolverines side, and Vienna won big over a major rival in the Raleigh Redhawks.
Atlantis to Run 7s Camp in Maryland this Weekend
Atlantis Rugby will be holding a series of camps and clinic this winter/spring and the latest will be this coming weekend in Maryland.
The longtime elite 7s program will be holding a Sevens Camp for high school boys and girls March 5.
The camp will be held on Sunday at the Mount St. Mary's campus in Emmitsburg, Maryland. Players will assemble at the PNC Sports Complex to work out from 11am to 3pm.
Bixby Downs Aquinas
Bixby defeated St. Thomas Aquinas 24-5 this past weekend in what is a warmup game for both teams.
Bixby had already taken the field and won and they were certainly together on the defensive side of the field, holding Aquinas to one early-in-the-game try. It was a tough, close game into the second half—Bixby did reply to the Aquinas try and led 7-5 at the break. In the second half Bixby started to put some things together but didn't pull away until an interception try late in the game.
"St. Thomas had our defense going backwards for first 15 minutes or so," said Bixby Head Coach Chris Smith. After that, however, "we started clicking defensively, and was able to keep them backed up for a while, finally turning [that pressure] into points."
Competitive Start For Many at Ra Puriri Invitational
In a rather unpredictable Ra Puriri Memorial Invitational, teams from Utah and Arizona get some important early-season runouts.
Due to the weather, all games were played on the Snow Canyon High School football field, but that didn’t stop the rugby from being high-quality.
It was a highly competitive day, too, with several teams rotating players but also showing their potential as contenders.
The scores below might surprise some but many teams put on new players to get them some game time.
Four From Kendig Sparks Vienna Win
Vienna defeated the Raleigh Redhawks 42-5 over the weekend, following up on a big win over Loudoun County the week before.
It's been a good start for Vienna but still it's early days. Many of the current Vienna and Raleigh players have played against each other since 4th or 5th grade, and no matter the age there's a good rivalry between the two, with most games very close. Last year's game saw Raleigh take a 31-12 lead only for Vienna to storm back to win 55-31.
The rivalry is steeped in respect, but it was tough for the Redhawks this time around as Vienna controlled things on the scoreboard at least.
Played two days after it was sunny and 80 degrees, this game was played in snow and a freezing wind. That made for some difficult ball-handling conditions.
Cathedral Remains Undefeated, Wins SCIRF Title
The Cathedral Catholic Dons and Fallbrook Warriors faced off Friday night for the 5th version of the So Cal Interscholastic Rugby Federation (SCIRF) Championship.
During what has been a rain-filled week in Southern California, the teams were lucky that the rain held off for this clash. However, windy conditions helped and hindered both teams. To their credit, both teams handled the kicking game well.
In the end, the Dons defeated the Warriors 45-0 ending their season 9-0. It was the Dons’ third straight SCIRF championship, in which their record during the run was 24-2 and included victories over Jesuit Sacramento, Regis Jesuit of Colorado and St Joseph’s Prep of Philadelphia.
More Regions Kick Off HS Rugby This Weekend
This is a big weekend in that for a lot of teams it's the final weekend of scrimmages, trainings, and tuneups before their seasons begin March 4.
We expect we might see a number of cancelations this weekend as the weather is pretty awful in some spots. But awful is also in the ey of the beholder, and say what you want about artificial turf, you can still play on it when it rains.
But we also have the start of play in Utah with the annual Ra Puriri Memorial Tournament—formerly the Ra Puriri Invitational but Ra Puriri, the father of United Coach Colin and longtime Te Mana/Snow Canyon Coach Colin, passed away this past October.
GRR HS Club Rankings Week 5
In this week's HS Club rankings, the #1 team Granite Bay tied with Danville.
That isn't, in and of itself, a reason to drop a a team out of the #1 spot, but Belmont Shore's win over Jesuit and the Woodlands beating West Houston were also big events, so we've made some changes at the top.
The rankings seem pretty California-heavy and that's fair considering how well those teams have performed over the last several years and also considering that they are actually playing rugby. More teams will be on the field soon, with the Midwest, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, especially having the potential to shift things around.
Watch for the culmination of the SoCal single-school season to jump-start club movement among teams such as Thunder, SOC, and San Diego.
Bixby Starts Strong
Oklahoma-based Bixby HS opened their season with a convincing 67-0 victory over Liberty out of Kansas.
"I was very happy with the performance, especially it being our first match," said Bixby Head Coach Chris Smith.
It was windy and the like a lot of teams this time of year these two teams are waiting for some players to join thanks to injuries or other sports commitments.
"I am happy with what we pieced together," added Smith. "This was the first outing for this particular backline lineup and I thought they kept it simple but effective."
The Bixby pack has plenty of new faces and were a little ragged as a result, but it will come together, added the coach.
"If they can pick the game up quickly they will be very good players," said Smith.
GRR HS School Team Rankings Week 5
As we keep saying, these are early days.
Early days mean that one result can make a massive difference, but it also means that some teams that are ranked highly now will drop down even if they don't play any more games. More results, especially against other successful opposition, will force those changes.
So we come to St. Francis, a new school team that already upended one of our most highly-ranked teams in De La Salle. Do we just vault St. Francis into the stratosphere? Or do we drop DLS down several spots? Or do we find a solution somewhere in the middle?
St. Francis Shocks De La Salle in NorCal
Northern California seems to be full of surprises and few were as head-turning as St. Francis beating De La Salle over the weekend.
Certainly thought of as a top-five contender, De La Salle found themselves dealing with an athletic and improving St. Francis side, a new single-school program in the region. St. Francis is coached by Mark Scharrenberg, who played 38 times for the USA as a center and he has been enjoying the new gig.
"What I want is for these players to be able to play in college wherever they play," said Scharrenberg. "So we've been concentrating on skills and basic structure. We have a good mix of kids who have played a lot, kids who have played a little, and kids who haven't played before at all. They're coming together."
Woodlands Pulls Away from West Houston Late
Texas HS club rivals West Houston and Woodlands faced off over the weekend in the clash of what appears to be the strongest two club teams in the state.
It was a hard game throughout. Both teams were missing players they would have wanted to call upon, but the player attrition was rougher on West Houston, whose bench was shortened as a result. West Houston opened the scoring with an interception try by center Ignacio Zumelzu going in under the posts, and that was an indication of the game somewhat, with Woodlands making mistakes (dropped balls and penalties) that West Houston did well to punish.
New HS Team Marvin Ridge Wins North Carolina Single-School Title
Marvin Ridge defeated Hough 27-5 to win North Carolina's single-school championship, capping off a season in a battle of two potent offenses and two strong defenses.
Statistically speaking, Hough had the better of Marvin Ridge in points scored (266 to 243) and points allowed (29 to 63) over the six season games and the semifinals. But that's why they play the game. Marvin Ridge, four months old, capped off a three-fer championship, taking the Middle School, JV, and now Varsity state championship.
Formed out of a youth program that was getting older, the Marvin Ridge team was skilled and knowledgeable among its younger players, and athletic and dynamic among the new, upperlcassmen recruits. They had developed a unified team culture and ended up running the table, going 8-0.
Los Alamitos Stays Atop in SoCal
Los Alamitos remains undefeated in Southern California after defeating San Clemente over the weekend.
Los Al moved to 4-0 in the Multi-School Varsity league, just ahead of Carlsbad and Long Beach Poly.
Coach Dylan Ramirez's team is young but talented. Freshman Manoah Faupusa is very difficult to handle in the midfield. He had multiple line breaks, but perhaps his true value came when he was tackled, as it took several San Clemente players to stop him and that led to space elsewhere.
Among those that relished the space out wide was Max Amasio, and he was able to fend off any tacklers who go close and made several breaks himself.
Rugby NorCal Latest: Marin, SFGG, and More
There is plenty of rugby still to be played in Rugby NorCal's Boys HS league, but plenty has happened already.
We already pointed out that Granite Bay and Danville tied 26-26—Top HS Clubs Tie in NorCal—and that result has kind of thrown the standings into a whirlwind.
Meanwhile, SFGG won a very competitive game against Mother Lode 33-14. The game was much closer, in fact, than the score indicates. About 55 minutes into the contest it was a one-score lead for SFGG before they ran in three late tries.
"We're not too bad," said Head Coach Tony Wells. "We've got some good athletes and there's still a learning process. We're young. We're a pretty physical group; we've got some skilled players, and they're smart."
