St. Edward and Penn HS will be facing off for the Midwest Championship Sunday after both won shortened games on Saturday at the beautiful Moose Rugby Grounds in Elkhart, Ind.
While some high-profile teams in the region opted to bypass the tournament (school commitments, injuries, and prom all were reasons), that's the way of the game in general. Show up and play and get the trophy, or don't.
St. Edward opened against HSE-Fishers Mudsock, and stuffed Mudsock in their 22 and kept them there. While the Eagles' finishing wasn't clinical—one player slide on his back over the tryline but didn't know it and so tried to play the ball back instead of touch it down; another was held up and another attack was stopped by an interception. However, eventually St. Edward started to settle down and use their forwards to back over a couple of tries.
With a more comfortable lead St. Ed's relaxed and kept control in a 24-7 win in which Mudsock saw few scoring opportunities.
In another quarterfinal, Glen Ellyn and Bishop Dwenger played a wild one. With time winding down, the teams had both scored three tries. However, Dwenger hit all of their conversions while tough angles made the kicking a little tougher on Glen Ellyn and they had none. Hence the 21-15 lead.
Glen Ellyn put it together for one more attack and scored to make it 21-20. But with the wind and the angle playing its influence on the goalkicking, the conversions was missed and Dwenger held on 21-20.
Penn played the Chargers out of Indiana and won comfortably 48-0. Avon, led by their intelligent, shifty, and Mohawked flyhalf Gage Poland, took apart a hard-working St. Xavier side 38-12.
So that send up the semifinals. Penn produced a powerful effort against Avon, scoring a penalty goal early and then opening their play up. A nice combination of power crashing through the middle and speed of ball movement saw Penn score two tries out wide before Avon was able to get on the scoresheet. Penn won 36-7.
