Charlotte Tigers Impress at Carolina Ruggerfest
The Charlotte Tigers kicked off their season in impressive fashion at the Carolina Ruggerfest, overcoming early-season challenges to secure three dominant victories. With only three practices under their belt before taking the field, the Tigers displayed resilience and determination throughout the weekend.
In their opening match, the Tigers faced a tough Richmond Strikers squad. Despite some early-season attacking miscues, Charlotte controlled the game, securing a 27-5 victory. Captain Jameson Beatty led from the front, scoring two tries, while outside center Zachary Cullen notched his first try of the season. Forwards Brody Evans and Reid Johannes each powered over the line in the second half to seal the win.
Herriman Defeats East in Early-Season Utah Rivalry Meeting
Herriman and East, the only single school programs in Utah's combined Tier 1, met in an early season match after getting their feet wet at the Puriri Invitational last week.
Defending state champion East was looking to establish itself after an uneven showing in that warmup tournament, while Herriman was looking to continue its momentum from a strong start.
Both teams came in to this game nursing some injuries from a week ago, with East down a starting center and Herriman down four starters in total and running out a lineup with only three seniors.
Xavier Defense Downs GGA
“Defense wins games, offense determines how much you win by,” said senior captain and center Max Wyckoff when asked about Xavier’s opening victory over St. Gregory the Great Academy. “Our defense really shut them down,” Wyckoff said with a smile.
By Mike LiVigni
Head coach Greg Norris agreed and added, "good teams are good defensive teams and I think we did a great job today against a team that could play and move the ball.” Norris noted that a strong defensive performance by his team led to the Xavier Knights defeating St. Gregory the Great Academy 34-14.
The strong 4-0 season start by the St. Greg’s team forced Xavier to stay focused as they prepared to open the season. Norris said that he was impressed with Xavier’s ability to play heads up rugby and the team’s ability to adjust play on the fly.
Tactical Nous Helps Torrey Pines to SoCal Win
Torrey Pines won the SoCal single-school final Saturday night in San Diego, defeating Loyola of LA 41-12 behind a very effective kicking game.
The Falcons did not have an easy time of it and while they eventually won by 29, the game was far from a runaway.
Torrey Pines did score relatively early, forcing a turnover off the kickoff and keeping the pressure going from there. Finally they put flanker Shay Farkash, new to rugby but a talented loose forward, throughthe middle for the opening try.
That try was converted by Rees Curtis and he added a penalty to stake Torrey Pines to a 10-0 lead. But the Falcons struggled to build on that as Loyola defended with determination, led by some good work from hooker Sami Park and flanker John Francis.
NorCal School Finals: St. Francis On Top
St. Francis beat De La Salle 31-22 Saturday to win Northern California’s single-school final.
The speed of play and athleticism from St. Francis was impressive, with center
Kingston Keanaaina scoring two tries on the day. Naia Alatina also scored twice while Hunter Gosset added one.
“The boys played their hearts out but St. Francis was too much to handle,” said DLS Head Coach Derek Holmberg.
“We have a lot of respect for De La Salle’s program and their ability to have good teams year after year,”
said St. Francis Coach Mark Scharrenberg. “Any win over them is an achievement.
De La Salle took a 15-5 lead but as halftime approached their defense faltered and St. Francis pounced, scoring three tries in 10 minutes to take a 24-15 lead into the break.
Around the Nation in HS Rugby
Here's a look at some of the action in Boys HS Rugby around the country.
SoCal Finals
We have our report on the SoCal School-Season Multi-School semis and final here: San Clemente Wins SoCal Multi-School Championship Under the Lights
Look for our report on Torrey Pines winning the Single-School final shortly. Torrey Pines beat Loyola 41-12.
Xavier vs Gregory the Great
Xavier HS out of New York beat Gregory the Great 34-14 behind a massive defensive effort. We will have more on this soon.
Top Texas Clash
Strake Jesuit defeated Dallas Jesuit 41-10 in Texas to take the inside track on the top spot among school teams there. St. Thomas continued their strong form with a 46-31 defeat of FFA.
San Clemente Wins SoCal Multi-School Championship Under the Lights
San Clemente won the Southern California Multi-School division of their School season, taking the final 14-10 over Oceanside.
The finals were part of a two-game night for every team, with teams playing a shortened semifinal (40 minutes) and then a 3rd-4th game followed by the final.
San Clemente vs Murrieta
This was the #2 vs #3 team and it was a somewhat weird game. Murrieta dominated field position, barely letting San Clemente out of their 22 for most of the first half.
With prop Ean Glover strong over the ball and with lock Matix Macenas winning lineout ball and No. 8 Tyrone Cullors running well, Murrieta came close to scoring a couple of times. But they couldn’t finish.
SoCal School League Multi=School Playoffs Tonight
Southern California's multi-school championship here in its school season finishes up Saturday with the league final.
Friday night is the semifinals, with Oceanside vs Rancho Cucamonga and San Clemente vs Murietta.
Ruggerfest, Cali Playoffs, and More in HS Action
We have so much going on, so let's get into it.
The Carolina Ruggerfest has teams from all over competing. The Boys U19 brackets include teams from North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Florida, South Carolina, and Georgia. Ohio might seem a long way away but they have two teams in there. The teams that make the effort get the most out of it when they bring multiple sides.
"We're eager to face some competition," said Javier Casserly, who takes his Key Biscayne Rats to Charlotte. "In order to get better we need to have more competition and these tournaments and festivals. You play teams you don't see and you play against players you don't know. In Florida we all know each other. So it's good to go to the tournament and the players learn to adapt."
Who Leads in Florida?
Key Biscayne sits atop the Rugby Florida HS league as they are now 4-0.
The Rats have impressed with a pretty tough defense and a very smart kicking game, and over the last three weeks have beaten both Okapi teams—they are the only team to beat Okapi White.
Santiago Casserly has been especially good at center both as an attacker and being central to the defense. Lock Benjamin Diaz nails down the set piece and has also been crucial in making sure the attack runs with continuity.
But, added Head Coach Javier Casserly,"it's a long season. We're not in the playoffs yet. We're 4-0 and that's good but the truth is going to show in how we keep playing."
HS Boys Club Top 50 2025: Week 6
It's still early days, so it's important to take some results with a grain of salt.
Doylestown's win over Vienna gets them in the rankings for now, but we need to see consistency from them and we'll see if Vienna adds to their roster or puts that result behind them.
Danville's win over the Wolverines is fine in part because it didn't conflict with the rankings. But it's important to remember that this game is a non-league game featuring San Mateo players who are not with St. Francis. The club season starts for the Wolverines after St. Francis ends their season, which is when we're really going to worry about them.
Greer Takes South Carolina Final
For the third year in a row Greer and Oceanside Collegiate Academy met in the South Carolina Boys HS State Championship, and Greer took the title for the second year in a row.
Greer won 28-22 in a back-and-forth affair featuring multiple lead changes.
Greer struck first with a line break and finish by senior flyhalf JW Sarkees, who sliced through the defense from 40 meters out, showing the vision and speed that got him an invite to the USA U18s 7s camp this past November. He converted his try to give Greer the early 7-0 lead. OCA would quickly respond. They combined strong forward play with quick ball out to the wing where Gavin Gaspar hit a big gap out wide and then broke multiple cover tackles on his way in from 60 meters out.
LCA, Herriman Show Well at Puriri Tournament
Your big winners coming out of the Puriri Tournament seem to be Herriman and Layton Christian Academy.
Those two teams are certainly two of the major state contenders this year, along with defending state champs East HS. While East faltered a little, it's important to remember that the Puriri Tournament, while competitive, is still a warmup tournament.
Herriman beat Red Mountain 54-12, leading comfortably at halftime before ringing the changes. They followed that up with a 53-10 win over Tribal, playing a less experienced group, and then beat the Caveman out of American Fork 25-7.
"Not too bad for our first run out," said Herriman Coach Jeff Wilson. MacRae Parker and Ryker Syddall started well for Herriman and the junior flanker pairing of Cannon Brinton and Jaden Mangelson showed a high work rate.
Three Selections for Nelson College Scholarship
The success of the Nelson College Scholarship program developed through the US Rugby Foundation is pretty evident given that the program has now been expanded to three student-athletes.
Unveiled in 2023, the Nelson College Scholarship funded two places at Nelson College in New Zealand for two American high school boys where they would study and play rugby. In 2023 that pair was Oliver Kirk (Chicago Lions) and Max Doerfler (St. Thomas Aquinas). Both found success at Nelson and came back to captain their respective HS teams. Kirk was asked back for his senior year at Nelson, where he helped the team with a South Island championship.
Kirk is now a freshman at Cal. Doerfler unfortunately sustained an injury but having already been accepted to West Point, he was able to defer and will matriculate to West Point this fall.
HS Boys School Top 50 Week 7
Well you knew it had to be done.
Gonzaga lost. Sure it was a close game and sure it was the opening game of the season against a team that had already played twice. But it had to be dealt with. So Gonzaga drops from #2 to #7. We're pretty confident they will work their way up after that and they will have every opportunity because their schedule includes almost exclusively ranked teams—the only chance they aren't ranked would be in the Gonzaga Classic, and on their tour to Italy, which, of course, will be pretty tough, too.
