It's early days yet in the Northern California school season but already we have new dogs showing some bite.
Such as Rio Americano. The Hawks faced off with St. Francis, who had been so strong the last couple of years, and came away with an impressive 31-21 victory in Varsity Open Division play.
The Sacramento-based Rio Americano came in under Head Coach Sam Enochian, who also runs the Carmichael HS club team. With a ton of confidence.
Enochian said before the match that he knew he had a good team. He Raiders used to have a team but COVID had contributed to the team not being around for a while.
But work had been going on behind the scenes.
And now it's all center stage after the Raiders beat the 2025 All-California champion Lancers.
Rio started brilliantly and took a 17-0 lead into the halftime break.
Brothers Isaac and Noah Gomez each scored a ry, and Logan Morris added one as well.
Perhaps a bit surprised by what Rio Americano can do, St. Francis stormed out in the second half. They hoped to take advantage of Rio being shorthanded due to yellow cards, but in fact it was the raiders who scored nextRonan Curry going over to make it 24-0.
But St. Francis backed their second-half plan and cored three converted tries to turn a potential runaway into a 24-21 nailbiter.
With three minutes left in the game Jli Karavaki et up Seti Perona for a race to the corner. Try Rio Americano and Perona added the difficult conversion to ice it 31-21.
Rio Americano takes a pretty blue-collar approach to their rugby, working hard as a unit and focusing on domination up front. Their prop due of Gomez and Sam Enochian did well to win set piece and make the gainline. Lock Reed Knapp and loose forwards Ronan Curry and Isaac Gomez were active around the field making tackles and securing possession, while flyhalf Devin Pointes distributed the ball nicely to strike runners such as center Peyton Templeton and fullback Seti Perona who ran hard charging lines into the heart of the backline.
