Going into the 2023 HS season it was clear to many that Gonzaga might have a pretty special group.
Goff Rugby Report had Gonzaga ranked #1 and were hard-stretched in throughout the season to find anyone else to take that rankings. In fact, in the 19 weeks of GRR’s Top 50 so far this year, Gonzaga was in the top spot for 17 weeks. Now most programs would try to dodge the favorites status, but, really, Gonzaga couldn’t.
So they didn’t.
“We took a page out of the 2015 All Blacks’ attitude,” said Head Coach Peter Baggetta. “If we’re going to be the favorite, then we just embrace it. In years past our attitude was, ‘let’s not pay attention to that ranking.’ But this time it was more like “let’s own it. If people expect us to perform well, then let’s perform well.’”
Get It In Writing
They knew they were could. In January, when GRR visited Gonzaga’s training, there was certainly a palpable sense of high expectations.
“We thought we would be better than last year,” said Baggetta. “We have to get a couple of pieces right. But we knew we had a good team. We knew we’d play a tough schedule—we’ve always played one of the toughest schedules in the country. This one was tougher and while some of the games weren’t as tough as we thought they were going to be, we were holding ourselves to a standard.”
In December the players and coaches met up and established what they wanted to be. The team leaders didn’t hesitate. They wanted to be the most dominant team in the country.
“Everything we did was working towards that,” said Baggetta.
They even codified that vision, printing up a list of goals and approaches that would make that happen.
After beating this year’s eventual Rugby PA champs and last year’s Rugby PA champs in successive shutouts (Gregory the Great and LaSalle), Gonzaga took a trip to Northern California thanks to some cheap flights to Sacramento ($300 per person!).
They beat Jesuit Sacramento 24-13 and then lost to Granite Bay in a game that was tied before the final 20 minutes when Granite Bay’s fresher legs pulled them away.
Following that trip was a close win over Vienna (foreshadowing of Vienna’s Tier II triumph in Elkhart) and a tie with Fort Hunt. So good results, but the tie was enough to keep the Eagles out of the #1 ranking spot.
Then on March 25 Gonzaga played St. Ignatius, the team that had beaten them twice in 2022, including in the national final. Gonzaga won 49-7. That turned heads.
“To be honest we didn’t think we played particular well vs Ignatius,” said Baggetta. “It’s not that St. Ignatius is a bad team at all, they are good, but we weren’t clinical enough. We were making small errors.”
In other words, whatever the result, they weren’t adhering to that vision list. Not yet.
On to their tour of France, where Gonzaga split games with two very strong opponents.
Meanwhile, the coaching staff had been looking at their players. They were taking an analytical approach to the lineup—how could they get the best rugby players on the field?