HS Boys

Spain holds Off EIRA in 2nd Meeting

Spain's U18s defeated Eagle Impact Rugby Academy 49-36 Sunday in the second of two matches between the two teams in Valladolid, Spain.

The EIRA side had recorded their first not-loss against Spain two days ago with a 17-17 tie and were hoping to record their first victory today. However, a very speedy and effective start to the game for Spain put EIRA in a hole that they couldn't quite climb out of.

In a very high-scoring affair Spain opened the scoring off a lineout and working through a couple of phases to get a conversion try. The lineouts were a source of unhappiness for the EIRA side all day as they couldn't quite get the connections right and their organization on defense could have been better. 

EIRA Players Celebrate Progress, But More Work To Be Done

In the first four meetings between Eagle Impact Rugby Academy and the Spanish U18 side, it's fair to say EIRA was smoked.

Scored of 61-15 and 55-15 in 2021 were followed up with 36-3 and 43-24 in 2022. Only that last one really harbingered that the players, as well as the coaches, were starting to understand just how quickly the Spanish played, and how EIRA teams might score points.

And prevent them.

Flash forward a year and June 29 EIRA held Spain to a 17-17 tie. A tie that could very well had been a victory.

"We came here to finish a job and execute and the forwards were especially united in what we wanted to do," said West Houston Lions flanker Hunter Finlay. "We had good line speed on defense and our tackling was good, especially our two-man tackles."

Florida Jaguares Impress in Winning MLR Academy Tourney

The Florida Jaguares took home the honors this past weekend at Major League Rugby's first MLR Academies tournament.

Held in Boston, Mass. and hosted by the New England Free Jacks at their stadium, the MLR Academies Tournament featured a round-robin between five teams:

New York MLR Academy-NY Foundry
New England Free Jacks Academy-Junior Jacks
Houston Bobcats MLR Academy
Florida Jaguares
MYRO Lions

The Jaguares started off strong, shutting out Massachusetts Youth Rugby (MYRO) 40-0 and followed that up with a 19-0 shutout of the Junior Jacks.

New York's academy, the Foundry, provided a sterner test and the Florida side edged the Foundry 17-14.

EIRA Launches Third Straight Spain Tour for U18 Boys

Eagle Impact Rugby Academy is going back for another go in Spain.

The U18 Boys EIRA side will tour Spain for the third straight time, and hope to continue its improvement arc while there. Their first two matches in 2021 were fairly convincing victories for the Spain National U18 side. In 2022 the games were much closer.

This year, EIRA is adding a warmup match to their tour, giving everyone a chance to take the field, get to know each other a little better and … well … warm up. 

That game is today, June 27, against Vigo and will be followed up with games against Spain on June 29 and July 2.

Head Coach Salty Thompson has chosen a side from all over the USA, with several who have experience with the EIRA tour program—many were with the U17 team that toured Ireland in 2022. But there are also some newbies.

Among those picked:

Latest List of College Commits

Here's our latest commit list for players who will be playing rugby in the fall.

This list is brought to you by Next Phase Rugby, which is an app that helps high school rugby players connect with college rugby programs. Get the app and get started for free at NextPhaseRugby.com.

Check out the players we previously listed here>>

If you don't see your name there or below, let us know what you're up to in the fall here>>

GRR HS Club Final 2023 Rankings

This is the final week of HS Club rankings and we really don't have a lot of changes.

Most of the championships that we were waiting for involved school teams, so there's not much to move around.

So we thought we'd take a look at a couple of stats, such as:

In the 19 weeks of rankings we had five different teams ranked #1. Only two teams, Granite Bay and Belmont Shore, dropped out of #1 and returned. The longest streak of being #1 was Woodlands, which held the position for five weeks before being unseated by Okapi. The most weeks total at #1 was Belmont Shore, with six, including the last two.

Sasquatch Invitational Brings Rep Side Rugby Back to PNW

The Pacific Northwest has returned to select-side competition with the newly-named Sasquatch Invitational.

Following on from the old Great Northwest Challenge, which was held for over 15 years Pre-COVID, this tournament offers rep teams from western states the opportunity to compete and improve their skills against other state or regional rep sides.

Last year Oregon and Washington were able to put together a home-and-away series, and the Sasquatch Invitational this year is the next step to getting back to a regional rep side tournament. 

Oregon, Washington, Cascade (Eastern Washington), and Arizona competed with girls and boys teams in both U16 and U18. Idaho was unable to field a team but might be expected to compete in following years.

GRR HS School Team Rankings Final for 2022-2023

We have come to the final school-team rankings of the 2022-2023 season.

We waited a couple of weeks to post these final rankings because there were a few results here and there to track, but not so many that it was worth torturing you all with a ranking where 98% of the teams didn't move.

As a result, however, we do have some drastic movers and here's why:

1. Edina finally confirmed a body of work and deserved to be in the top 50.

2. Pelham beat Rye in the New York playoffs and as a result Rye moved down and Pelham moved up. We wanted to see how far Pelham might move up based on their result against Xavier, but Xavier won comfortably so we're happy with a 19-place bump but no more.

Illinois Tornados, North Carolina Winners at Buckeye Invitational

The Illinois Tornados won the Boys Buckeye Invitational select side tournament in dramatic fashion Sunday, while the girls title was won by North Carolina.

The Boys bracket was made up of four teams so everyone played each other with the top two then playing a final. The Aviators went 3-0 while Illinois and Celtic Elite, both 1-1 after Day One, faced off to decide who would finish 2-1 and make the final. Th e Tornados held off the Elite 19-15. 

In the final game, the Aviators led 11-5 with time almost up. The Tornados were pressuring the Ohio line and came very close to scoring on several occasions. Finally, from a penalty right in front of the posts the Tornados tapped andwere able to finally get it over. With the conversion, Illinois had won 12-11.

Slugfest 7s Kicks Off Summer in Maryland

The Howard County Hurricanes defeated North Bay 26-14 to win the Slugfest 7s hosted by the Rocky Gorge Rugby Club in Maryalnd.

Howard County, a combination of players from the Maryland Exiles, Good Counsel, and Landon School, beat the Minutemen and the Roosters on their way to the final.

North Bay, meanwhile, got by West Carroll and also the Vipers, which is a team made up of players in the Maryland MIAA school league.

Landon Rugby standout Sam Acosta led the Howard County side in tries while Cam Webster (Maryland Exiles) was a defensive standout and was successful on 90% of his conversion attempts.

Chasing High Standards Keeps Edina on Top

While the Minnesota HS league has struggled to bounce back to full numbers, they did hold a two-tiered state championship last week, with Edina HS taking the title in both tiers.

Knowing that their in-state competition might not be the strongest—many teams were struggling for numbers which is why the Tier 2 played 11-a-side—Edina knew they had to play outside competition when they could.

Not having lost since a game with Florida’s Okapi some years ago, Edina took a trip to Wisconsin where they tied eventual state champs Green Bay 19-19. They toured Ireland expecting to get smoked but also expecting to learn something they ended up winning all of their games, including against Belfast’s Malone, a 131-year-old club with a full trophy case.

The Bumpy But Rewarding Journey of Vienna Rugby

Vienna's journey to victory in Tier II of the HS National Championships could potentially be traced back two years.

It was in 2021 that Vienna won the National Youth 7s Tier II, and while not all of those players were in Elkhart this year, it was certainly a harbinger of future success. But the journey has also had its obstacles. The Vienna team had big dreams last year and saw their hopes to win Tier II fritter away partly because they ran up against a very good Thunder team, and partly because they let composure breakdowns creep in. Champions keep it together even when it's not going well. They learned that harsh lesson in 2022 and put it into practice in 2023.

Latest College Commits

We have no excuse, we have fallen behind in listing college commits.

But we're determined to catch up.

Let us know here if we missed you>>

Several colleges have named their incoming freshman class and we're folding those into our lists.

At the same time, various HS teams are pretty excited to see who among their group is going on to college rugby.