St. Augustine faces off with Las Costa Canyon Saturday in a clash that could go a long way toward telling us who leads the heap in Southern California’s Varsity Red Division.

This league, which is made up of 100% single-school teams in the San Diego region, saw Fallbrook win the title last year. But Fallbrook has graduated some strong players, including Player of the Year Steve Brennan, and that has left an opportunity for others to move in.

La Costa Canyon is one of those moving in, having thumped Torrey Pines and Fallbrook - no pushover, either of them. And now they take on St. Augustine, which began the season with a defeat of Fallbrook, but slipped a little last week with a tie against Del Norte.

Head Coach Eric Dent said it is always difficult to keep players focused on training during the Christmas break, and that is coupled with the fact that in January St. Augustine has an odd schedule that allows students to take internships and electives, and somewhat messes with their routine.

Regardless, Dent said he thinks his Saints team has some potential.

“My goal is to offer these kids a chance to learn rugby and perhaps pursue it in college and continue the experience,” said Dent. “We’ve been doing that. But we’ve not seen a lot of guys go on to play club rugby in the spring. They play three months each year and that’s it, and that slows down how much experience they get.”

So the La Costa Canyon game will test a group that is not hugely experienced. Still they have some players to watch - No. 8 Andrew Alves is a big, powerful No. 8 who is only a sophomore. Ethan McPhee is a scrumhalf who is an accurate goalkicker and is starting to read the game nicely.

And John Hickman is a 4th-year center who is a thundering runner and, more importantly, a leader by example.

“LCC is certainly going to be a tough game,” said Dent. “They’ve got very solid defense and we can’t have the kinds of errors and mistakes we made last week.”

It won’t get much easier after this weekend for either team. Waiting in the wings is Cathedral, which has retooled nicely this year and slammed Del Norte 67-20 in December. They also played a non-league game against LCC and lost 17-14. So suddenly the upcoming conference games against the Saints (Jan 23) and LCC (Jan 30) loom large.

(See more news on the Southern California HS leagues here.)

Also on tap this weekend in Varsity Red (conference records in parentheses):

Del Norte (0-1-1) at Fallbrook (0-2)

Poway (0-1) at Cathedral (1-0)

St. Augustine (1-0-1) at La Costa Canyon (2-0)

Idle: Torrey Pines (1-1)