The Northern California Grizzlies wrapped up a hugely successful weekend at the Great Northwest Challenge with two Boys championship to add to their Girls U19 title.
The U19 D1 Boys won their third straight GNC championship and the U16s repeated as champions as well.
The program as a whole took six teams, with crucial experience garnered by their D2 teams as well.
U19s Not Just About NorCal
Utah brought a nice combination of power and speed and looked very good in sharing the load in a 31-7 win over Washington Selects. However, a very smooth Colorado team started well, also, beating Montana West behind two Alex McDermott tries.
McDermott would score another when Colorado met Utah at the end of Saturday, a 31-24 Colorado win that had Utah shaking their heads.
That set up a semifinal between Utah and Colorado, and the Utah side spent the night looking at how they could counter Colorado's very effective kicking game. They fixed some of their discipline issues and dropped extra players back, and it worked. Colorado struggled to get scoring chances and tries from Jaxon Fisher flyhalf Tumua Moors saw Utah win 14-6.
NorCal, meanwhile, had won both of their Saturday games 43-0. Daniel Dunne kept finding the tryline and teams realized that you kick at fullback Seti Perona at your peril.
The Grizzlies sliced through Washington 31-12 in the semis, and that set up the final.
Chris Liebbrandt at scrumhalf was fairly big for the position and was a powerful runner as well as providing good service to his runners. The second row pairing of Avery Waddles and Rowan Hester was very impressive, while captains Thomas Parrott (flyhalf) and OC Lehner (No. 8) were playmakers and hard-charging leader by example respectively.
So we came down to the final.
Utah threw everything they had at NorCal and this was a back-and-forth game. The intensity was high, but the players retained their discipline and focus and that was crucial.
Determined to play in the opposing half, Utah looked to use the boot, reasoning that they had the speed and fitness to chase well and pin NorCal back.
But Perona, who had helped spark Carmichael Hawks to a NorCal Gold championship and an appearance in the HS National Championship Tier II final, was lurking. He punished kicked by making the first tackler miss virtually every time. At the very least he would attract tacklers and create space for someone else.
But he could also move himself.
Perona torched Utah on a counter for the opening try. Then off a scrum in Utah's 22, Leibbrandt ran weak and linked with wing Carson Strain and he finished superbly.
Back and forth the teams went, but NorCal remained ahead. Perona curved wide, just like coaches tell you not to do, and outstripped everyone to score from 80 meters. He added another brilliant score, and yet one more break set up another try.
