Many of the players on the USA Rugby South team playing in the NACRA U19 15s remember last year.

In the 2014 tournament, a 15-10 loss to Mexico in the semis relegated the Panthers to the 3rd/4th game, where they won 32-10. That was a nice ending, but that loss in the semis stuck with them.

“We’re looking for revenge,” said flyhalf Dylan Boast, who plays at Arkansas State. 

“I wasn’t there last year, but I know it was a tough loss - the guys talk about it and took it into account,” said Andrew Pretorius out of Roswell, Ga.

So it’s fitting then that Mexico is the South’s opponent in the NACRA final. Once again the Serpientes made the final by winning a tough, close game, this time 15-13 over Trinidad & Tobago. The South team, meanwhile, defeated Barbados 32-7 to get there. It wasn’t easy, though, as the South took a while to get over the tryline, and actually trailed 7-6 at one point.

“Barbados tackling was really good,” said Boast, who directly set up two tries and kicked 12 points. “We had some trouble pushing them backwards, but our forwards really helped us get on the front foot.”

Boast kicked two early penalties and that got some momentum going.

Barbados came back with a try from a kick that bounced oddly past Cameron Troxler. 

“Their kicker did really well,” Boast said of Jake Caddy. “It was an unlucky bounce, But we knew they would want to sling it wide whenever they could.”

“After seeing that try we realized we needed to come up quicker on defense,” added Pretorius. “And we needed to get back quicker to cover the kicks, too.”

The South team is a mixture of high-schoolers and college players, and LSU’s Brennan Falcon said the college experience has helped the squad as a whole.

“The guys who’ve played at the collegiate level really made sure we didn’t get ahead of ourselves,” said Falcon. “We just played our game.”

That game, added Falcon, is pretty good, but could be better.

“Our physicality is good,” said the flanker, who scored one of the South’s four tries against Barbados. “The forwards are playing well but we need to work on our lineouts and the technical game overall. You can see us progressing, but we need to clean everything up a little but.”

And they have to clean it up against Mexico on Saturday in Orlando.

“Our attitude is that we have business to attend to,” said John Williams who plays for Ravenwood HS in Tennessee. “There’s a little bit of excitement, too. We have another shot at Mexico. They humbled us last year, and I think the team felt we kind of overlooked them. Now we’re going 100% in every session. Prep has been hard - grueling, but fun - and we’re ready to take it to them.”