The Empire Rugby Club made the final of the Green division in Southern California Boys HS Rugby with a 56-20 defeat of Hawaiian Gardens.

Empire beat Rising Eagles, Desert Valley, and Hawaiian Gardens in league play to get to the playoffs, where they hammered Poway, a team that beat them in a non-league game earlier in the year.

Empire also beat soon-to-be #5 Back Bay in a non-league game in February.

Led by the likes of scrumhalf Braz Burnes, and Sua Moi and Joe Price in the pack, Empire has learned from their early challenges to wade through their competition.

Now they face Orca in next week’s final. Orca beat the Coastal Dragons 48-40 Saturday in the other semifinal.

Empire was founded in 2010 by Curtis Bayer, the brother of Tal Bayer, current Wheeling Jesuit Coach and the energy behind the Hyde aka Perry Street program in Washington, DC. According to Coach Jack Rose, they would have preferred to be in the Gold Division in Southern California, and perhaps a victory next week might get them there.

(The Green and Gold divisions in SoCal aren’t exactly a DI and DII. The Gold divisions are considered stronger, but the idea appeared to have been to include the Green conference winners in the Gold playoffs. That didn’t happen this year. Instead Tri-Counties winner San Luis Obispo, which was considered both Gold and Green, entered the playoffs along with the top four (out of six) from the North Gold and top three (out of four) from the South Gold. Empire was not pleased, and now have a chance to prove their case with a win over the Tri-Counties #2 team, Orca, next week.)

"I feel we should have played in the Gold division this year all along - but we've done the best with the situation we are in,” said Rose. “The team has been working hard all year and keep trying to get better every week.”