Greenwich High School defeated Xavier HS 34-29 Saturday night, scoring in the final moments to pull out a victory.

This was a clash between the #6-ranked Xavier team and the #14-ranked Greenwich squad (both rankings Goff Rugby Report single-school Boys HS rankings). Both teams had logged impressive victories, but both had also stumbled in what is still a relatively young season.

In this annual rivalry game, Greenwich started much the stronger, and led by 13 points at halftime.

“The game started very well for us,” said Greenwich Head Coach Joe Kelly. “In the first half, the only time they scored was on broken play.”

With halfbacks Soh Nakayama and Fermin Moraiz working nicely together Greenwich and with Kevin Kumar powering through tacklers to score an impressive, try, Greenwich built on the early surge. Moraize cut back into tracked and kept his legs driving to score. Xavier replied with a brilliant piece of skill - slick handling set up a grubber kick down the sidelines. Ioin Sansevero managed to toe the ball back infield where scrumhalf Connor Buckely chased it down for the try. It was a wild score, and Xavier’s only points of the half.

Greenwich generally had the possession and after some good work from the forwards, Nakayama took a gap and was in at the corner for a 20-7 halftime lead.

“Their coaches got them ready for the second half,” said Kelly. “They came out breathing fire. We expected them to come back and they did.”

Xavier No. 8 Malik Fisher made a try-saving tackle for Xavier and then a couple of big runs to get his team out of trouble. Wing Matt LaSorsa scored on an impressive run on the outside, and then Fisher powered over for two tries from eightman picks, one going left, and one going right.

But Greenwich replied - Patrick McTiernan intercepting a Xavier pass and going about 25 meters for the score. Xavier regained the lead when flanker Ifaenyi Emeh raced through traffic.

And that set it up for the final play. It wasn’t especially pretty, but it was effective, as Greenwich won a scrum, and then got a penalty, and the forwards did the rest, with prop Erik Menchaca crashing over for the game-winner.

Xavier Director of Rugby Joe Sweeney said his team didn’t play smart through much of the game, coming out flat in the first half, and in the second, pushing the pace of the game when they had the lead and needed to be more conservative.

At the same time, Xavier showed plenty of heart in mounting the comeback.

For Greenwich, “they knew they had to do this,” said Kelly. “The Greenwich guys responded really well when Xavier came back. They came together, all the forwards made their tackles. It was a great win for us.”

“They are our biggest rival every year,” Greenwich co-captain Luke Bienstock told GreenwichTime.com. “Since I was a freshman I’ve known that Xavier was the team to beat. Our defensive play won this game for us. They had some good, physical players, but we were able to chop down at the knees and take them down.”

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