For Goff Rugby Report by Erik Saxon - The RCT South was a big, competitive affair from top to bottom. In a few cases the difference of one solitary try over several matches meant the difference for a team fighting for a 1st or 5th place finish over the course of the three day event. 

But in a tournament of close high school matches, it was the middle school cup final that captivated spectators and drew the biggest crowd.

At the end of pool play on Sunday, the Charlotte Middle School All Stars (last year’s RCT South Champs) and the Virginia Middle School Selects (a new entrant to the RCT South) were matched in the final – Charlotte 3-0 and Virginia at 2-1 with their only loss coming to Charlotte in a tight match on Saturday morning.  Both teams come from middle school rugby hubs.  Both teams play crisp, technical attack with stout front-foot defense.  Before it even kicked off, everyone knew this match was going to be worth a watch…it did not disappoint.

Virginia dominated nearly the entire first half. Both teams were very physical, but Virginia was clearly the more so in this match. They carried a 7-0 lead almost until halftime until the Charlotte hooker managed to break though and dot one down in the corner. The difficult kick was converted – tied at half. 

Virginia answered by scoring and converting again almost immediately after halftime, taking a 14-7 advantage. This score would hold and a back and forth defensive clinic would ensue until only 4 minutes remained in the match.  Once again, with time running out, Charlotte managed to break though and dot one down...and then converted again, to tie it up again, 14-14.

This was the one and only tie of the tournament for any division of play. According to rule, a 5 minute sudden-death overtime period was added.  One minute in a Charlotte player committed a unquestionable high tackle and justly was sent off with a yellow.  So, for four minutes Charlotte had the daunting task of holding a very good Virginia team out of the scoring area a man down. 

By this time, players, parents, off-duty referees, and coaches from other teams had all been making their way over to the middle school final to see what all the buzz was about.  Add to that Charlotte has an 8th grader girl on their middle school boys team. Jessica Gozlan attended a 90-player tryout and made the final squad of 29 purely on merit. Because of this, because of the score, because of the high level and quality of play, the sideline was big and was buzzing. 

Amazingly, Charlotte held Virginia out and preserved the tie a man down even having spent the majority of the overtime inside their own 22. The match went to double overtime. This consisted of each coach selecting 5 players that were on the field at the end of the first overtime.  Each of these players would get one attempt each at a drop goal.

Each time one of the boys lined up to kick, the crowd went dead silent and then erupted with each make or miss.  In the end, a big Charlotte front row put over the winning kick by mere inches – final score 14 to 14 and 3 kicks to 2.

Madness ensued cut short by great sportsmanship as the boys from each team hugged it out and talked about doing it all again next year.  It was simply great rugby.

Ironically, this match of the tournament almost never happened.  This year for the first time ever, USA Rugby mandated that middle school teams play 10-a-side at all RCTs.  All six of the teams planning on attending the RCT South play 15s in the regular season and petitioned USA Rugby to allow this RCT to continue with a traditional 15s Union format.  USA Rugby declined and most of the teams then began to cancel their trips. 

The event organizers got creative and simply changed the name of the middle school potion of the event to the Regional Challenge Tournament instead of Regional Cup Tournament and then got separate insurance for that division apart from USA Rugby and created a separate sign-up for teams.  So, it was in essence a whole other tournament that was concurrent and co-located with the RCT - different on paper, seamless at the venue.  The result, all six team came and played 15s and it was stellar competition from top to bottom. 

The 6 middle school teams (Charlotte, Virginia, Georgia, Eastern NC, Tennessee, Florida) were 2 more than 4 Varsity Girls teams in attendance  and 3 JV Girls teams who were not so lucky when it came to avoiding limiting rules from the governing body.    At least 3 girls teams stayed home that had planned on attending the RCT South as they could not field both a JV and Varsity side and no exception for combined grade sides were considered.  

From that perspective, one can only wonder what other magical moments and magnificent matches might have been with a more flexible and inclusive policy.

Fans stop everything to watch the Middle School Final