High School Rugby This Weekend; The Sunny States Fire Up

Boys high school rugby is slowly getting into gear, and while March will see a larger number of teams ramp it up, we do have some games to look at this weekend.

Louisiana And Texas

Lake Travis out of Austin, Texas arrives in Louisiana for two touring games. See more here Lake Travis HS Travels To Louisiana For Two

This weekend will go a long way to telling us where Lake Travis, Jesuit New Orleans, and Brother Martin are in the pecking order.

Meanwhile, Dallas Jesuit, just off a nifty little win over Allen, will take on Plano in Big D. Also in action is a very useful Katy Barbarians team that hosts Strake Jesuit, and with a clash between the North texas Barbarians and Alliance will quite possible tell us which of those clubs has recruited well for 2021.

Florida

As we reported earlier, the Florida season is underway and already intriguing.

Rats Start Fast In Key Biscayne

Florida HS League Underway And Tight At The Top

This weekend we see 2-1 Jacksonville face a struggling 0-3 Cape team that is probably due to improve. Wellington, a bit of an unlucky 0-2, faces a very handy 2-0 Key Biscayne (see link above). Okapi, which opened with a loss to Jacksonville but has won twice since then, plays a Cardinal Gibbons team that hasn't taken the field yet and should be quite strong. Tampa is a competitive 1-1 and plays 2-0 Naples. So if some of these two-win teams falter you could see everything bunch up even more.

In the U16 league in Florida, Okapi has started on fire at 3-0. The Wanderers take the weekend off while Wellington and Key Biscayne, who have both lost to Okapi, face off.

Arizona

Tempe has already logged a couple of good results and on Thursday took on Glendale, winning 62-0.

Tempe Soars In Opener In Arizona

Friday's game for Tempe was called off, but they face South OC out of California in U18 and U16 Saturday. Thursday's win for Tempe saw player-of-the-game performances from Aki Pulu and Alani Maafu. Tau Pauga, Ashton Liddell, Eli Palmer, and Luke Schafer have been attacking well, but more than they have led on defense, where Tempe has been hard to break.

Arkansas To Oklahoma

The Little Rock Junior Stormers, who got some good news about one of their prominent alumni recently, are a strong team with no one to play, and often they bunch very intense matchups with long periods waiting for someone else to play them. This year the Stormers start early with a trip to Oklahoma to take on Bixby. In a Rugby Oklahoma that is in flux, Bixby is one of the contenders, and should be stiff competition for the Stormers.

It doesn't get easier for Little Rock as next week they will host the Kansas City Junior Blues and Germantown out of Tennessee in a two-day round-robin.

Watch for rankings next week! Watch for scores through the weekend.