Brother Martin In Control In Louisiana
Brother Martin moved to 5-0 in the Louisiana boys HS league with a tough 14-7 victory over New Orleans Jesuit Wednesday night.
After scoring over 34 points per game in their first four league matches, Brother Martin was held to just two tries by a difficult Jesuit team.
Brother Martin used its pick-and-go attack to gain tough yards and score their first try. Senior prop Jacob Schmidt powered over and wing John Rink converted. Brother Martin worked the ball down the field again and used its pick-and-go attack to good effect and made it 14-0 when Senior prop John Authement finished it off. Rink was good again on the conversion.
Despite several more opportunities to score, Brother Martin was held out by a tenacious Jesuit goalline defense, and the teams entered halftime with the score at 14-0.
Iowa 7s League Starts With a Bang
Iowa Youth Rugby has launched its 7s season with 29 teams playing in three divisions.
The Boys 2A and Boys 1A competitions both have 10 teams involved, while the Girls 1A has nine teams duking it out. After week 1, we're already getting a sense of of who looks strong, with Ankeny (as usual), Fort Dodge, and CR Washington all going 2-0 in Boys 2A.
Bondurant-Farrar, Central Springs, and Waterloo remain unbeaten in in Boys 1A, and in the Girls bracket SE Polk, DM Roosevelt, and Dowling all started 2-0.
Panther Rugby Academy Teams Come Up Huge at Tropical 7s
Many eyes at the Tropical 7s were on the Panther Rugby Academy.
Given that the Panther program entered 16 teams in the tournament was reason enough, but there was also the fact that the PRA has earned the USA Rugby designation of National Development Academy. With that kind of stamp of approval, they beter perform well.
And they did. The PRA held seven camps across five states in the South, with almost 300 players getting seen. They ended up fielding 192 players on 16 teams.
Wins and losses can’t be the only measurement of this effort, especially in, say, the Boys U18 bracket where eight Panther teams participated. With so many split teams the combined 18-29-1 record was almost inevitable. But it’s also true that 96 players got high-level experience, and this was clearly part of the plan.
Boys 2021 HS Club Rankings Week 6
We don't have a lot of changes in this week's HS Club rankings because teams that did play did what was expected.
We are set up, however, for a very intense April with major matchups coming up: Royal Irish at St. Ignatius, Charlotte Tigers vs Aspetuck, Raleigh, and Germantown, the Florida playoffs, and key showdowns in Texas.
Youth Rugby in Alaska Shows Its Talent in Florida
Alaska's young rugby players traveled 4,500 miles last week to get a game of rugby in, and they did pretty well in three brackets of the Tropical 7s in Orlando, Fla.
The girls struggled a bit more than the boys. They logged wins over Fallbrook and Rogue Ridge, but lost four in pool play and lost the 9th/10th playoff to Riverdale 22-5.
The boys came very close to playing for the championship. They beat one of the Panther 7s teams and tied another 5-5. It was only their tight 22-14 loss to eventual pool winners Gorilla Rugby that derailed a top two finish in the pool. Instead, they went into the consolation bracket, playing off for 9th. There Alaska Youth Rugby defeated Celtic Barbarians 35-10, Kahuku 19-17, and Mauri 26-24 to win the Cup Final and finish the weekend 4-1-1, with their only loss to the team that finished 3rd in the entire competition.
Boys 2021 School HS Rankings Week 6
With this past weekend being Easter weekend, there were precious few games from school-supported teams.
This was, in part, because many of the single-school teams are Catholic schools, and they don't want to play on Easter Weekend. But we did see St. Ignatius play St. Edward in the week just before, with #7 Ignatius getting the better of #9 Edward. Rivalry Night Heats Up Cold Ohio Night.
That results in a slight bump up for Ignatius, but it was ultimately a good, competitive match and it won't hurt St. Edward much.
The other major change is that Capital HS in Idaho defeated the higher ranked Rocky Mountain. That's a big win for Capital and puts them in solid position in the Gem State.
Depleted Genesis Shows Mettle in Comeback
In a clash of ranked HS club teams in Utah, Genesis defeated a tenacious Salt Lake Valley Rhinos 29-19.
Genesis did so despite losing about a third of their starters due to injury and other issues. Head Coach Eric Nelson was quick to put that out of his players' minds.
“I looked our boys in the eyes and asked them how they were going to respond to this challenge. Were we going to just concede defeat based on our situation or were we going to rally around each other and overcome?”
The match started tentatively with both teams holding strong in defense and not mustering up much offense. Finally Genesis got a few front-foot phases which took them down within the Rhinos' 22. After a few more phases of forward ball, senior flanker Alec Shockley touched it down in the corner.
Aspetuck Wins Battle With Staples
Aspetuck took on Staples HS in Connecticut and got plenty of competition from their in-state rivals.
The day started with Aspetuck needing to learn the adjusted rules for COVID that would be enforced playing the High School Team from Westport. The biggest impact was the rule that no mauls would be allowed, and Aspetuck seemed to be off their game a bit because of it.
The day started with C-side match-up where the larger Staples side beat the Aspetuck C side in a score of Staples 29 Aspetuck 22. Then the B-side teams met in a shortened game of 20 minute halves, where it was all Aspetuck in a hard-hitting affair. Aspetuck 38 to Staples 7.
Rebels Top of Tropical 7s Boys U18 Heap
Rebel Rugby Academy went 6-0 at the Tropical 7s to take the Boys U18 bracket.
Made up of players from the Colorado and Texas area, for the most part, Rebel beat Panther 7s Gold, Gorilla Rugby Academy Black, and Panther White to win their pool.
They then took carte of Panther 7s Blue 24-10 in the quarterfinals, Gorilla Gray 34-5 in the semis, and Panther 7s Gold 19-7 in the final.
"We were a late addition to the tournament and we lucked out with a great group of guys who meshed well over the last few days," said Coach Ethan Pougnet. "Kudos to Tournament Director John [Siner], the staff, and the other teams.They put together a great competition and we were happy to be a part of it."
Aquinas Takes Down KC Jr. Blues
St. Thomas Aquinas continued where they left off with a very impressive 43-5 defeat of their longtime rivals the Kansas City Junior Blues.
Aquinas put a lot of the pieces together against a Junior Blues team still looking for the special combination. With their scrums working nicely and leading to several tightheads, and the forwards worked hard in the breakdown, recycling ball and opening space for an effective backline.
Aaron Goodwin and Jonathan Contreras led that forward effort, while in the backline Brock Kluempers, Payton Ptasnik, and Nick Jurczak worked the backline attack well.
Sa'o Siavi'i was also hugely influential and Bennett Bodenhamer earned player of the game honors.honors.
Aquinas now looks to an up-and-coming Kingfishers team, a team that has recorded some solid results including a defeat of KC.
Time To Make a Move This HS Weekend
It's Easter Weekend and some teams are on Spring Break or just not playing around Easter, but we still have Boys HS games this weekend.
We started on Wednesday with the fascinating St. Ignatius vs St. Edward clash. In Idaho, it's Rocky Mountain at Capital HS that has us thinking, the Florida playoffs start, and Bixby takes on Edmond in Oklahoma. There's also the little matter of #2 HS Club against upstart #13 SLV Rhinos in Utah.
Check back for scores.
(Bold teams are ranked)
Teams Set For 2021 Boys HS National Championships
The Boys HS National Championships invitees have been finalized.
Despite the event being moved in terms of timing (from May to June) and in terms of location (from Salt Lake City to Kansas City), nearly 40 teams applied for the 24 spots. Interestingly, far fewer School teams applied as opposed to HS Club teams. This is likely due in part to the timing of the event, and also to travel restrictions put in by schools on their sports teams.
But it has been a trend over the last few years that more clubs than schools are applying.
Some teams that had seen success in previous years—2019 Club champions Back Bay and 2019 Tier 2 champions Rocky Mountain—opted not to apply.
Rivalry Night Heats Up Cold Ohio Night
In one of the most intense high school rugby rivalries in the nation, #7 St. Ignatius defeated #9 St. Edward in an all-Cleveland-area clash Wednesday night at the St. Ed's field in Lakewood, Ohio.
The two schools are massive rivals in any sport you can name, and are located just a few minutes from each other on the western side of Cleveland. Wednesday night they renewed their acquaintanceship with a hard-hitting affair in raw, cold weather.
A Team To Watch: Salt Lake Valley Rhinos
The Salt Lake Valley Rhinos are now ranked #13 in the Goff Rugby Report HS Club rankings, and they have nothing to thank but their results.
The Rhinos competed well in the Ra Puriri Tournament, and after a loss to Herriman defeated Provo and (!) United to get the rankings recognition.
This is a club that doesn't get the same notice as the liked of United or Herriman or Genesis or West Valley. But they are slowly working their way into prominence with a tough, physical team with athletic talent.
Boys 2021 HS Club Rankings Week 5
It was a quiet weekend for the top-ranked teams, but after that it was very noisy.
So noisy, in fact, that we've expanded out rankings to 40, and we're getting close to the 50 we normally rank.
Big movers include Aspetuck, which showed its power and its depth over the weekend; SLV Rhinos, a team we had on the cusp of being ranked, and who then went out and beat United last week; Fairfield, who almost beat Berks and then beat West Shore.
Jacksonville and KC Jr. Blues lost by big scores, and while we know that injuries and play unavailabilities can make this happen, we can't ignore it. However, these are, overall, strong clubs and good results going forward can potentially memory-hole those losses.
