The Rugby Colorado season has barely started and already there’s been a shakeup, as previous DII team Monarch HS defeated defending DI champs Regis Jesuit 19-15.

It is most certainly early days, but the result has made people take notice.

Monarch was one of the top DII teams in 2016, making the final before losing to Palmer HS, but Colorado’s DII is actually very competitive, and moving up was not a worrying prospect for the team.

“Even if we didn’t have to move up to DI for this season we would have moved up,” said Monarch Head Coach Chris Hanson. “We expect to be competitive right up through the playoffs, and we hope to be in the DI final. That’s our goal.”

Monarch followed the model that has worked for several newer HS teams, and started young.

“We started the program with a handful of five- to eight-year-olds, and we’ve built from there,” said Hanson. Now the Monarch HS team is a sanctioned club on campus (albeit at a lower tier than some other sports), and they have a girls team, and a series of age-grade squads.

“We’ve built a really strong program that’s got a deep feeder program so we feel we’ve set ourselves up for long-term success,” said Hanson.

On game day against Regis Jesuit, it was cold. Parents from both teams were shoveling snow off the playing surface before the game, and the temperature at kickoff time was a shade above freezing.

“It made for cold hands and a lot of knock-ons, but credit those Regis Jesuit kids, they are very disciplined and hardly knocked the ball on at all,” said Hanson. “It was kind of a sloppy game, but we are very happy with the win.

Bolstered by a strong deep three, highlighted by wing Warner Wyckoff, and with center Zach Bastres putting in huge tackles and lock Isaac Kasten playing an excellent game up front, Monarch held on for the win, and put themselves in an excellent position to contend this year.