North Carolina's single-school season is almost at its culmination with this weekend's semifinals taking us one step closer to a champion.
Last week was NC's bye week designed to handle postponements, but the weather has been kind to the region and no one had to make up games, which was a bit of a surprise. All that meant that the top four teams were able to rest up and prepare for what promises to be a tight final couple of weekends.
It's worth noting that the four teams in the semifinals have exactly one loss among them.
#1 Seed Hough (6-0) vs #4 Laney HS (5-1).
Hough allowed just 26 points over their six games, and it's that stingy defense that should see them through. On the converse, newcomers Laney HS didn't score much, but that meant they were able to battle it out in close games.
Hough does not have a lot of big players, but that usually means they have a bit of a chip on their shoulders, and that's true here, too.
"We focus on spreading the ball and changing the point of contact as much as possible," said Head Coach Bruce Colson. "We have only four seniors so we're still a pretty young team, and unlike most other teams we don’t get any crossovers from the school football teams after their Fall season so numbers are always an issue."
That means they often only have a bench of three or four players. How did they go undefeated then?
"The secret to our success has been the hard work each boy puts in and balancing our very light roster numbers to keep 15 players available game time," said Colson.
Hough is blessed with a really strong scrumhalf-flyhalf hinge of Porter Kuebler and Zach Colson.
"So much of our play revolves around them," said Colson the elder.
In addition, experienced players in the front row like Colby Marr and Jacob Eroh set an excellent platform and hard-hitting, mobile forwards like George Prinsloo, Dylan Natal, and Kai Campbell are excellent tacklers. Out wide Beyond Bembry and Chase Dixon are the rapier and the shield.
"No secrets," added Colson. "Just hard work and always hoping that we don’t get too many injuries so we can field a full team every week. We expect Laney to be physical and so we will need to have a wits about us this Friday and here’s hoping we can challenge for the final the following week."
Laney Head Coach Jim Wiseman is wary of the challenge.
"For the two years I have been involved with HS rugby in North Carolina, Hough has been the team on top," said Wiseman. "We have not had the chance to play them but they have to be a well coached and fundamentally strong team to win like they do against a lot of really good teams. We are just very excited to get to play in a game like this. I am into year 15 of coaching rugby and the development I have seen from this group of almost all new players over the past couple of months has been nothing short of amazing. We have to be big underdogs this weekend, but these boys are ready to go up there and compete."
Leading scorer and captain Mason Wiseman has been excellent, but he picked up an injury. Javian Johnson stepped in for him, and he's an example of one of those players who has come on in leaps and bounds. Lock/flanker Max Buckingham leads the charge up front and No. 8 Aiden Reece has been a key player also.
