It’s down to four teams in the Rugby Pennsylvania Single-School competition after Conestoga, St. Joe’s Prep, La Salle, and Gregory the Great all won quarterfinals this past weekend.

It was an impressive showing for Conestoga, which, since their 18-14 loss to Cumberland Valley back at the beginning of April, has averaged 55 points per game. And they capped it off with a 62-33 defeat of that same Cumberland Valley team. 

Led by captain Pete Jean and the human wrecking ball Daquan Perri, they have laid down a marker.

Two of the game this past weekend were very close. La Salle edged Moon Area 26-24 and St. Joe’s Prep beat West Allegheny in overtime.

“We’ve never seen kids bigger than this team,” said St. Joe’s Coach Brian McCloskey. “But out guys played well and tackled well and were good at forcing turnovers.”

The St. Joe’s forwards were savvy and scrappy and allowed St. Joe’s the hang in there, with hooker Gaelen Kelly player superbly and lock Riley Curtin also playing well up front. With scrumhalf Kyle Crawford running the attack, St. Joseph’s played with the wind in the first half and led 19-7. With the win in the second half, West Allegheny thundered over for three tries and a 22-19 lead. Late in the game, St. Joe’s got a penalty and fullback PJ Maher slotted it over to tie the game with no time left.

That set up overtime, and the teams agreed to play two halves of five minutes to help negate the influence of the wind. Once again, it came down to Maher, who slotted the penalty in sudden death to win the game 25-22.

“It was a classic game between the 4th and 5th seeds,” said McCloskey. “It was really tough.”

So that sets up St. Joe’s v La Salle in the semis, which is a classic rivalry - one of those matchups where it doesn’t matter what sport it is, it’s going to be big.

La Salle got tries from Liam McGowan, Brian Brunner, Tim Groff, and Danny Murray, while Groff converted three for 26 points.

“We honestly did not have our best day and the boys have not played their best rugby yet, so hopefully they learned from this one,” said La Salle Coach Matthew Derrick. 

Brunner and Murray came on as impact subs. For Murray it was a nice comeback after a clavicle fracture that he sustained during preseason. He injected some life into what had become a somewhat stagnant La Salle offense and made some key defensive plays as the game came down to the wire.

And finally, a unified Gregory the Great team defeated Woodland Hills 25-5. GGA is now 7-0.