St. Ignatius 49 Xavier 21
St. Ignatius 49 Xavier 21
A blistering offense against a stalwart defense went the way of the try-scorers as #2-ranked St. Ignatius of Cleveland beat #1 Xavier of New York in a very entertaining matchup in neutral territory in Hollidaysburg, Pa.
Xavier exploited a defensive breakdown on the Wildcats’ side to score early and take a 7-0 lead. But here’s where the different stories of the teams gets going. As we pointed out in our preview, Xavier had held five ranked opponent to 14 or fewer points this year. And while the St. Ignatius points-against numbers seem similar to those of Xavier, they had been burned more frequently. In their only game against a common opponent, Xavier beat St. Edward 29-10, while St. Ignatius won 60-27.
So the Wildcats could score quickly, and the Knights had the ability to keep very good teams at bay.
Well in this case St. Ignatius was able to score quickly. Good defensive work forced a penalty and Chris Haney pumped the ball into the corner, from where the Wildcats mauled it over.
Through the game, the St. Ignatius maul was very effective, but, oddly, when it came to scrum time, Xavier was most assuredly the stronger eight.
After tying it, Ignatius quickly went over the line again, and quickly score once more to take a 21-7 lead—Haney converting all three tries.
Unwilling to back down, Xavier scored against to make it 21-14, cutting straight through to score from long range.
“Xavier is very good and were very good in the scrum and in the deep three; they will cause a lot of teams trouble,” said St. Ignatius Head Coach Dan Arbeznik. “This was a very tough game.”
Once again the St. Ignatius strike rate came to the fore with two tries before halftime to suddenly make it 35-14.
In the second half Ignatius scored quickly to make it 42-14, and the teams traded tries in the latter stages.
Interestingly, both teams kicked all of their conversions, with Haney going 7-for-7 on the day for Ignatius. The Ignatius maul produced three tries, from three different players. In fact, for Ignatius it was seven tries from seven different players: Joe Deinhart, Jacob Papesh, Keegan Forkapa, Tommy McManamon, Gavin Vollmer, Rafe Gabrovsek, and Liam Burrows.
Ignatius welcomed a couple of players back from injury, notably Brown University commit Vollmer (a lock who started his career as a fullback), and BC commit Adam Bornhorst (who had played virtually every pack position).
This was a result in which Xavier did not show poorly at all, but in the end it was a day for Ignatius. The fixture included a B-side game, JV, and Freshman matches, something that has become a bit of a tradition with these two teams.
And finally, there’s the penalties. Both teams came into the match lamenting their penalties and discipline issues. But with a #1 vs #2 clash with a lot at stake, a top-flight referee such as Ian Seaton ended up penalizing both teams less than 10 times—funny that.
