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St Ignatius Beats Royal Irish

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St Ignatius Beats Royal Irish

Brenda Whalen photo.

St. Ignatius of Cleveland defeated top-ranked HS club team Royal Irish 27-13 Saturday in a classic crossover match.

Ignatius, which defeated Gonzaga earlier this year - a team Royal Irish also beat - has now defeated the #2 single-school team (Gonzaga at the time), and the #1 HS cub.

Royal Irish ran out to 13-0 with David Hannon having a strong game at flyhalf. But St. Ignatius replied with five unanswered tries.

"We had the wind in the second half so we had to play ball in hand most of the first half," said St. Ignatius Head Coach Dan Arbeznik. "We had five different guys score tries."

Hannon was good on all three of his kick attempts, slotting two penalties and a conversion. For Ignatius, lock forward Sean Soeder was a force defensively in the lineout and because of that Royal Irish had a lot of trouble launching from that aspect of set piece. Flanker Nick Zolikoff was also very active on defense. Flyhalf Sean Whalen operated a nice attack for Ignatius, and made a few breaks to open things up, but often the final pass would go astray.

"We got outplayed for the last two-thirds of the game," said Royal Irish Head Coach Scott Peterson. "We made a couple of errors with the lead early and they capitalized. They starved us of possession and field position for a good chunk of the game."

These two teams could meet again in the revamped Midwest championships next week.