The eight teams that populated the Boys HS Rugby National Championships HS Club bracket were, in fact, GRR's Top 8.
So ranking them is really a case of shuffling a few of them. No one did anything for us to say "Oh, yeah, they don't belong in the Top 8." Eastside out of Washington came 8th, but their losses were all close. Even their 22-0 loss to Woodlands was actually 8-0 40 minutes into the 60-minute game, and two of the tries they gave up, while still tries, were somewhat unlucky (an interception taken to the house and a knock-on scooped up and scored). So, no, they didn't do anything to drop them below #8.
Pendleton drops from #3 but you'd expect that. They did lose two games, but also those games were very close. Consider, by the way, that the 12 HS Club games from Elkhart produced seven games within a try, and the final was within a try until the final play. The only real question anyone will have, we think, in the Top 8 is whether San Diego should be ranked ahead of Layton Christian. There really is hardly any difference between the two. In the end we had LCA at #4 and they did nothing to change that, but San Diego's overall body of work seems like they should be #4 too, and we have them tied.
The next group is a bit more complicated as we factor in the Pacific Invitational games, a tournament that the SOC Raptors played in, but fielded a somewhat younger lineup. We took a look at that and the results at Nationals (in Tier II) and also remembering that Thunder did beat SOC in the SoCal 3rd-4th game.
Again, we're talking about very thin margins, including winning margins of 5, 3, and 1 points. Thunder did beat SFGG, who did beat SOC. Wolverines did beat SOC as well as KC. KC's loss to Wolverines was close, and their win over Charlotte Tigers was close. Their loss to the Wolverines was closer than that of SOC, but not that much closer.
Ultimately we've done the best we can. A Tier 2 HS Club competition including Thudner, SFGG, Wolverines, KC, SOC, Charlotte Tigers, Marin, and Richmond (not to mention Valor and Fort Hunt) would be great to see.
Charlotte Tigers make a big move based mostly on their 36-34 loss to Kansas City. Missoula comes in after winning Montana. We do have some more potential shifts as some playoffs are still on the horizon.
