Charlotte Sweep for Gonzaga
Defending Boys NIT single-school champs Gonzaga HS defeated Charlotte Catholic and the Charlotte Tigers in a preseason two.
Gonzaga looks to be strong this year with over 200 kids in the program at a variety of levels. Despite graduating HS All Americans at scrumhalf and flyhalf, Gonzaga returns HS All American prop Jack Iscaro. And, the odd thing is, he could well be the lightest player in the front row. With a couple of players coming from the football team defensive line into the front row, Gonzaga could field a front row of over 750 pounds.
That’s just the start, and Gonzaga impressed in their opening game against th two top teams from the Charlotte area.
Saturday score: Gonzaga 41 Charlotte Catholic 5
Sunday score: Gonzaga 46 Charlotte Tigers 5
HS Roundup
Fallbrook capped off their SoCal Varsity Red season with a 33-20 defeat of Torrey Pines in the championship game.
Fallbrook finished the single-school season 6-1, losing only their opening match, and then rattling off six straight victories, including two over Torrey Pines to take the title.
Also in Northern California this weekend, the club season really got going. Among the results of note, Hawaiian Gardens defeated ICEF 12-5, and Back Bay defeated the Young Aztecs 24-6.
Pasadena beat Santa Clarita 29-22 to improve to 2-0.
In Northern California, Danville defeated Hayward 45-19 and Peninsula Green beat the Oakland Warthogs 48-10. With their victory, Danville improved to 4-0 in the Boys Varsity Gold Bay Conference.
Penn, Jr Blues Lead in Lindenwood Tourney
Penn HS will play the Kansas City Jr. Blues in the final of the Lindenwood HS Tournament after both teams won their Saturday games in the Elite Division.
Penn HS looked superb in thumping 8th seed Eureka 46-5 and then defeated St. Thomas Aquinas 17-3 in the semifinal. Meanwhile, the Jr. Blues won their opening game in a close one 10-3 over St. Louis University High, and just barely edged Brownsburg 12-10 in the semis.
“We are both humbled and honored to be part of this first-ever event managed by a quality program like Lindenwood,” said Penn Head Coach Bart Bottorff. “My guys are just absolutely thrilled to be getting outside.”
Penn’s opening game was their first rugby activity outside all year.
SoCal Varsity Title Game Looms
The first half of the Southern California Boys HS season will be over Saturday afternoon after Fallbrook and Torrey Pines face off for the Varsity Red championship.
This is the conference that was SoCal Youth Rugby’s foray into a school-district-specific single-school league.
All of the teams are in the San Diego district of the California Interscholastic Confederation. The experiment has worked well enough, with many of the games being competitive, and the top four teams being close to equal. But only two make the championship game, and they are 5-1 Fallbrook and 5-1 Torrey Pines. Fallbrook’s only loss was in the first weekend, 22-10 to Cathedral Catholic. Had Cathedral won their last game of the season, against St. Augustine, they would have made this championship game.
Jesuit Downs Clayton Valley
It’s a busy weekend for Jesuit HS of Sacramento as they played Clayton Valley Thursday, and then look ahead to CK McClatchy and Lamorinda in the following days.
Clayton Valley came into Thursday’s game 3-0 after beating Dixon 31-24. They were bolstered by lock forward Jax Carter, who notched four tries against Dixon and is part of a tough forward pack that includes Jake Ray at No. 8 and lock Carlos Espitia.
With their halfback combo of Ryan Cooper and Eric Burkley directing play, they have had a strong start to the season. But Jesuit’s forward pack held their own against a strong Clayton Valey front eight, and the Jesuit backline, which needed to raise its game, did so.
East v Regis Caps Colorado Opening Wknd
The Rugby Colorado season gets going in earnest this weekend with a full slate of matches (weather permitting).
Heading the list of games is perennial contender East HS, which plays Regis Jesuit as the curtain-raiser for the two Pacific Rugby Premiership men’s club games to be held at Infinity Park in Glendale, Colo.
The Denver Barbarians plat Olympic Club, while Glendale hosts Belmont Shore. East v Jesuit kicks off at 11:45pm in the Infinity Park stadium, which is always cleared of snow on game day, so the game will go on for sure.
Also set for this weekend:
Aurora at PAC
Castle Rock at Ridgeview Academy
Chaparral at Littleton
Grand Junction at Broonfield
Westside SWARM at Aspen
Fort Collins at Boulder
Highlands Ranch at Central
South Doyle Headlines Tennessee Opening Wknd
High School rugby in Tennessee gets going this weekend, weather permitting, and South Doyle remains one of the teams to watch in the state.
South Doyle will kick off against Maryville Friday, and Head Coach Matthew Lance said he feels he has the most athletic and most experienced in the club's history.
"Our expectation is nothing short of a State Championship in the Tennessee Cup Division," said Lance. "With close to 40 guys on this season's roster, most returning from last season, the speed and competition at practice is like nothing we have ever had."
South Doyle started with a 26-10 win over a strong Alpharetta Phoenix team out of Georgia and followed that up with a scrimmage win over McMinn County.
Aircraft Charter Solutions PoW - Alex Ruiz
This will be a short article, because Alex Ruiz has received sufficient press here on these pages to bolster this selection. After scoring three tries to carry Weston HS to a 28-5 league victory in Florida HS league on Thursday, the zippy scrumhalf then suited up for the South in a North Florida v South Florida match on Saturday - this game was a trial match of sorts for the Florida Juice select-side program.
Ruiz shone in that game, too, a dramatic 22-22 tie. His service from the base of the ruck and scrum was consistent and of high quality. He helped set free the South backs in a tough game.
So if you want to know more, go here:
Florida All-Star Trial a Thriller
and here
Lindenwood HS Tournament Program
The Lindenwood High School Tournament brings some of the top HS teams together for a preseason-run-out.
Goff Communications has developed an electronic program for the event.
Click on this link or see the program embedded below. It works best on smartphones and tablets, but also works on a laptop/desktop.
(If you don't see it show up at first, refresh the page)
2015 Boys HS Club Rankings Week 4
It's been a crazy couple of weeks in Boys HS Club Rugby, with several top-ranked teams losing games, but games that leave us skeptical.
Back Bay's win over Santa Monica was a pre-season game, and so was Back Bay's loss to Empire. We're reluctant to just chuck Empire in the Top 30, but we might if they produce a couple more strong results. Meanwhile, we feel we have to give some credence to Kahuku's defeat of United, even though we know United were under-staffed. So Kahuku moves up, and United down. Both Back Bay and Santa Monica move down (and the Sharks move ahead of the Dolphins), but Empire has to wait.
(Also we updated this because we had not included North Bay's loss to Peninsula Green, which messes things up even more)
Brother Martin over Shaw, Muddles Deep South
In a clash of two of the stronger teams in the Deep South Tuesday night, Brother Martin came back from a 12-point lead to beat Archbishop Shaw 26-24.
The game was competitive throughout. Shaw scored early by pressuring Brother Martin and forcing errors. They then scored a second by running hard off the rucks. Brother Martin replied when captain Daniel Cardenez set up Jordan Scott for a try. Shaw struck back to make it 17-5 at halftime.
Brother Martin turned it around in the second half. Fullback Jason Watts was the danger man, scoring two tries to help put his side up 26-17. Once again, Shaw replied, this time with a quick tap to scamper in. The conversion was good, to make it 26-24. There was time, with seven minutes left, but Brother Martin held on.
2015 Boys Single-School Rankings Week 4
The big shifting this week in the Boys Single-School rankings comes after a week off for GRR, and a series of weird results in Southern California.
Torrey Pines were thumped by Fallbrook, which showed us how good Fallbrook was, but also maybe how we had Torrey Pines too high. But Torrey Pines had been suffering injuries, and a little better overall team health saw them upend Cathedral, who also then lost to St. Augustine. Whew. Lots of changes to be made there.
In addition, a few results in Texas (Westlake beating Dallas Jesuit), and in the South (Brother Martin beating Shaw) have us making more moves. We also like what St. Paul's has been up to in the Deep South and what Clayton Valley has done in Northern California (beating Dixon was a big one).
So much more rugby to be played.
