Well here we are for the final school-team rankings of the year.
This is often the time when we at GRR get the most criticism of our rankings and that makes sense, because it's the last one; there's no extra week to correct anything. It's also the time when teams ranked just outside of a milestone group (such as the Top 10) feel a little overlooked. It's, again, understandable. But in the end there's little difference between Ranking A and Ranking A+1. (OK, if you're #1 that's cool ...)
We had a nice, long look at the MIAA finals and were impressed with the level of rugby. We're often skeptical of leagues where teams don't travel, but this league, which is a full school-team league endorsed by the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association, seems to be a bit of a step above most leagues that don't travel much. Boston College did indeed travel and that's why they had a higher ranking all season. But Xaverian Brothers pushed them pretty hard and looked good. In addition, Weymouth won the D2 and while we don't have a lot of D2 teams in the rankings, we do have a few—Cavemen is one example. Medina isn't technically, a D2 team but there is a Varsity league above them, so in one sense they are. Those teams are, or were, ranked. We could argue that the single-school teams in North Carolina are a division below the club league.
Regardless, we got to watch Weymouth more closely, and they're pretty buttoned-up, and we decided to put them in the Top 50. However, it was really tough to drop anyone at this stage, so we have two teams tied at #50.
Staples ... Staples moves up dramatically after winning Connecticut. This is one of those situation where you've got one or two results from a while ago dictating a teams ranking. Staples have improved markedly since the beginning of the season and their defeat of Greenwich bumps them up dramatically. Greenwich, which had a weird season in which they logged impressive results and then some losses that undercut those wins, moves down a bit. Most of that is the result of a comparison of their results those of St. Edward /. St. Xavier. That's why we moved those Ohio teams above them.
So that's it. Thanks to all of the coaches who helped us with this. We enjoyed it.
