Two games kicked off the SCIRF season, with one fairly comprehensive winner and one tight one.

Winning fairly easily was Torrey Pines 75-7 over Fallbrook. That wasn't a surprise. Torrey Pines is pretty strong this year while Fallbrook is struggling with numbers. League rules allow a league game even if it's 12-on-12, but dropping the number of players on the field just opens up space for an effective attack. Torrey Pines returns 11 starters and with the effective Oren Cargill captaining and at flyhalf, and some players who have benefited from a combined rugby-and-football strength-and-conditioning program, Fallbrook's fate was sealed.

San Clemente

The other game on the slate was San Clemente versus La Costa Canyon. Both teams might see themselves as league contenders, but neither has had a lot of time to get ready (like at many high schools in the area, football takes precedence this time of year). But San Clemente pulled off an impressive win 19-14.

"We only really got our program fully up and running the weekend after Thanksgiving, after the high school football season unfortunately came to an unceremonious end," said San Clemente Coach Stuart Proctor. "We practice two nights a week, so many of our players had four practices under their belts prior to our game."

It was an experienced and well-coached LCC team that exposed San Clemente a couple of times and certainly won the point of contact in the opening 20 minutes. LCC scored early and seemed to be rolling.

"We had to quickly refocus and adjust our game mentality," said Proctor. "We then quickly found a rhythm and started playing as a more effective unit. We were able to retain multi-phase possession and move the ball to stretch the LCC defense."

That led to scoring chances, but not scores as a couple of poor decisions stymied those chances. Finally, just before the break, lock Charlie Clifford charged over and it was tied 7-7.

The second half was an evenly-matched scrap, and the teams each scored, with LCC making the conversion for a 14-12 lead.

It seemed like it would go down to the wire and it did. With five minutes to go, under pressure and inside their own 22, San Clemente managed to steal possession at a critical moment, and everyone launched a counter. After a series of phases, San Clemente got into the La Costa Canyon 22 and the forwards went to work inching closer and closer to the line. Finally, tighthead prop Nate Cross powered over for the game-winner.

"Both teams showed great character,," said Proctor, saying the game was an excellent advertisement for the high school game.

Clifford, flanker Kyle Herr, and flyhalf Trey Toticill all had big games for San Clemente and freshman Blake Allen showed real potential at scrumhalf.

San Clemente's JV team looked very sharp despite the early stage of the season and won 36-5. Scrumhalf Thomas Hartanov led a very fast-flowing, up-tempo attack for the San Clemente JVs.

"We played out of our skins and the coaching staff were ecstatic with the performance of our JV lads," sad Proctor. "That said we have lots to work on and sharpen."