HS Boys

Gamebreakers in HS Rugby This Week

We honor over a dozen players for their contributions in Boys HS Rugby this week.

We have several players recognized for doing the unglamourous work of making tackles, securing possession, and contesting rucks, but there are some flashier players, too. Have a look.

Ryan Miller, Medina

In what has been a very successful season so far for Medina, Miller scored 14 points in a 56-0 defeat of Walsh Jesuit in Ohio, with a try, three conversions, and a penalty. The senior fullback has played solidly all-around this season and also leads the team in points scored with 63 (five tries, 16 conversions, and two penalties) in six games this season.

RugbyNY HS Boys Season Begins

Rugby New York's Boys High School season starts this coming weekend.

Met NY will see all teams play in the same division, with seven teams in action:

Fordham Prep 
New Rochelle HS
Pelham HS
Playrugby ACADEMY
Rockaway Club
St Anthony's HS
Rye HS

(Xavier HS is playing an independent schedule)

Four teams will play in the JV league, with the Westchester Barbarians and the Albany Area Rugby Club combining to play the Fordham Prep and Pelham JV teams. Albany isn't MetNY but with the number of teams down in the area they have committed to traveling south to play.

Western New York is expected to kick off a little later and will play in two small pools based on geography. The Middle WNY group will including Corning, Syracuse, and Fairport; the West WNY group will include Grand Island, Kenmore, and Canisius.

Boys 2021 HS Club Rankings Week 9

This was a very weird HS Club Rankings week.

While the top six remain unchanged because they all performed as expected, and perhaps even a bit better than expected, the rest of the Top 50 got a shakeup for a number of reasons:

1. Teams that have been idle a relatively long time lose traction.

2. After the Florida final we went back through the results with a little more context and some of the teams from the Sunshine State dropped down.

3. We found out (just imagine our surprise) that two rankable teams that we thought were single-school were, in fact, HS clubs. That would be Layton Christian and St. Charles Prep. 

4. We reevaluated the San Diego Mustangs after they almost beat Thunder, and we reevaluated Pendleton after they barely beat Westfield.

Boys 2021 School HS Rankings Week 9

This week sees massive changes in the Boys School rankings.

First of all, we've got to acknowledge that a couple of teams we'd been ranking as school teams are actually clubs and we're moving them over —Layton Christian and St. Charles Prep. We know, the names indicate they are single-school teams, but they're not.

We also add in some teams, with Warrior, Calvert Hall, De La Salle, Cumberland Valley, and Staples all coming in thanks to good wins, some against ranked opponents. (Warrior was a team we had waiting in the wings, but for the club side ... but they're single-school.) We also bring in Cathedral Catholic as the SCIRF league will begin next week. We haven't brought in Gonzaga yet, but they are expected to play soon.

NorCal Gets Going: SFGG, DLS, Jesuit Win

Northern California's first step into competitive HS rugby this year was a tentative one, but it still happened, and that's a little victory in and of itself.

While some games were shifted to later in the spring because a late football season made preparation difficult (Danville vs Granite Bay, for instance), and some games were changed to more of a scrimmage format (Elsie Allen vs Bellarmine), we did see three games played.

SFGG

SFGG handed Menlo-Atherton a convincing 44-5 defeat. Marin and SFGG are slated to play-off at some point for a spot at HS Nationals.

Program Spotlight: West Houston Wins a Big One

West Houston is for real; that's the likely conclusion after the team beat #3-ranked school team Strake Jesuit Saturday in Texas league play.

After starting the season with a tie to Strake and a loss to St. Thomas, West Houston won two games by identical 40-12 scores to set them up for a rematch with a very tough Strake team.

"We’ve grown as a club," said Head Coach Mark McKay, who started coaching the team at its inception three years ago. "The development of the club and the high school team has been good. We've got a senior men's team as part of the club and they join in to help them. We're all getting that development."

With a lot of young players, McKay has been working on basic skills and making sure they can rely on those skills when things go sideways.

SCIRF Set To Kick Off 2021 Season Saturday

The Southern California Interscholastic Rugby Federation will be kicking off league play on May 1.

After a long delay due to COVID shutdowns and the moving of the Southern California football season, the SCIRF will start with a new format. With players on some school teams forced to choose between club or school (and that sometimes meant playing or not playing), the SCIRF is reduced in size this season and so the Platinum, JV, and Gold division teams will play each other this year.

Saint Augustine Caps Undefeated Run With SCIRF Win

Comebacks Highlight SoCal Return

Southern California started its league season after a long delay and Thunder, Belmont Shore, and the SOC Raptors all came away victorious, two coming back to do so.

Belmont Shore took on rivals Back Bay and won impressively 31-12 to start 1-0. Back Bay is relatively young this year, and will be building through the season. Some of the Belmont Shore players are fresh from a successful football season and they are rolling right into rugby.

Southern California HS League Kicks Off

Thunder Rugby (ranked #10 among HS Clubs) beat the San Diego Mustangs (C24) in dramatic fashion. The Mustangs ran out to a 13-0 lead at halftime and then scored right after the break to lead 20-0.

Brother Martin, St. Paul's to Louisiana HS Final

Brother Martin and St. Paul's will meet for the Louisiana State High School title next week after they won semifinals Saturday.

A surprisingly sunny day greeted Brother Martin and the Bayou Hurricanes at City Park in New Orleans. Brother Martin started the scoring at the four-minute mark when junior loose forward Andrew Lindstrom intercepted a pass and raced for the tryline. John Rink converted and the score stood at 7-0. At the 12-minute mark Rink showed off his pace after he took an offload from junior loose forward Andre Cook to race in. Rink converted his own score and it was 14-0 Brother Martin.

Bayou replied, producing a pass interception of their own, but Brother Martin responded with a nicely-worked movement that Rink finished in the corner.

Gibbons Upsets Hammerheads to Win Florida HS Title

In a game that turned out to be quite the upset, Cardinal Gibbons defeated the Naples Hammerheads 34-14 to win the Florida Boys High School final.

Naples had not lost all season before Saturday while Gibbons had had to pull themselves out of a 0-3-1 start, winning five straight to take it all. 

The game itself was very physical and the flow of the game showed it to be much closer than the score might indicate.

"When we saw their film from three recent games we had a feeling that we would have good success," said Gibbons Head Coach Eric Aumann. "We had much respect for them because they were undefeated and we were not at that same level of success. However, we did not expect that they would match our physicality perfectly."

Aquinas Downs Kingfishers in Kansas

St. Thomas Aquinas defeated Kingfishers 33-7 Saturday in a big match between well-regarded Kansas school teams.

Payton Ptasnik and Nick Jurczak were named players of the game. 

In the B-side match, Aquinas won 43-10 and were led by Chris Glenn and Austin Turner.

"They are some hard farm boys and tackling fools who never, ever quit," said Aquinas Head Coach Tim Kluempers about the Kingfishers team. "They definitely stretched us. But our boys played really, really hard, kept after it, kept working hard, and put pressure on them."

Ptasnik was excellent with the ball in hand and kept it flowing from inside backs to outside, and he made some excellent tackles as well. Meanwhile, Jurczak was superb at scrumhalf.

Power Second Half Sees Aspetuck Past Xavier

In something of a momentous clash of highly-regarded high school teams, Aspetuck rode a dominant second half to come back and defeat Xavier High School 41-17 Saturday in West Haven, Conn.

This was Xavier's first game back from the COVID shutdown and they were up for it, but were perhaps not as polished as they hope to be, and certainly didn't have as much game experience as Asptuck. 

The game started with Xavier on the front foot and their quick ball and speed to the breakdown quickly had Aspetuck under pressure. After a scrum in Aspetuck territory the Connecticut team infringed, and with the penalty advantage Xavier executed a sublime chip kick to the corner where Jack Burcker raced in to catch and score. The kick from Mike Strehle was good and Xavier led 7-0.

Games This Weekend in Boys HS Rugby

Games this weekend are all over.

We crown a state champion in Florida, welcome Virginia, Maryland, Northern California, and Southern California to competition.

Check back for scores.

Top Utah Teams Flex Muscles as Playoffs Loom

The cream is rising to the top in Utah Youth Rugby, but regardless of where a team is in the standings, there is quality throughout.

Herriman is atop the Red Conference Tier 1 with a 3-0 record and should remain so after this weekend's clash with Kearns. Olympus is right there at 2-1 and plays Tier 2 top team Copper Hills. East has had a tough time of it in a difficult conference and will be looking to get a win when playing fellow 0-2 team Mountain Ridge.

Noteworthy is that East has maximum bonus points in their two conference losses, having scored four tries each time and been within a try.

In the Blue/White Tier 2, Layton Christian leads but it's close with Brighton right behind them and Wasatch lurking.