St. Edward, Charlotte Tigers, Raleigh Redhawks, and Glen Ellyn played in mini-tournament at the University of Kentucky, with all four games being competitive.

St. Ed’s defeated the Charlotte Tigers 21-12 on Saturday and then Glen Ellyn out of Illinois 45-24 on Sunday. The Raleigh Redhawks also came out of the weekend 2-0 on a cold and windy weekend in Lexington, Ky.

For Glen Ellyn, the loss was closer most of the game, and in fast despite missing several of their starting forwards they were within nine at 33-24 with about 13 minutes to go. St. Edward finished strong, however, scoring two tries to finish it off 45-24.

For St. Ed’s Head Coach Andrew Martin it was a good showing, and he chalked it all up to “sticking to our structure and staying connected on defense, especially versus the Tigers.”

Ian Fairfield, Jerry Ratcliff, Xavier Inzarry, and Seamus Gibbons put on strong efforts for St. Ed’s as they look toward a nationals bid. All four teams struggled with the wind, rain, and cold at times, with execution of passes and lineout throws a bit of a crapshoot at times.

For Raleigh, they also beat the Tigers (27-17) and took care of Glen Ellyn 27-19.

The Redhawks have had to deal with weather canceling the odd training and some injuries, and started the season somewhat slowly in the Carolina Ruggerfest but their results this past weeekend turned heads.

Sunday’s game against the Tigers was a good matchup for two rivals. Both sides had to deal with a lot of penalties and the Redhawks were yellow-carded twice. Still they never trailed. The Tigers never backed down and scored at the death as they tried doggedly to claw back.

Raleigh defended smartly and we able to avoid having powerful Charlotte forward Sederik Saxon from hurting them too much.

Redhawk inside center Zach Piepho scored three tries, including the game-sealing try from an interception at midfield that hurt Charlotte’s momentum. Flanker Chris Newcomb, moving in from outside center to the pack, was strong on defense and carried well. Flanker Kyle Wilcox put in a massive shift, as did lock Ben Hennenkamp. The halfback combination of captain and scrumhalf Adam Laros and flyhalf Jack Rice combined nicely. Rice, a sophomore, stepped in from fullback because of injury and kept Raleigh on the front foot with consistency.

“We are still far from the level we expect to be at when we get our injured players back and we all get more accustomed to the attack and defense structures and patterns we are trying to utilize,” said Raleigh Head Coach David Krosner. “But the weekend was a solid step in the right direction for us. A big shout-out to Gary Anderson and the rest of the University of Kentucky guys who did a wonderful job hosting and to all the teams in attendance—it was two great days of high school rugby on excellent turf at UK.”