St. Ignatius of Cleveland won the Rugby Ohio Boys HS 7s on Sunday, but despite the final score of the final it wasn’t an easy run.

The tournament was a straight bracket, with eight teams in a quarterfinal, followed by cup semifinals and consolation semifinals, and then the placement games.

The quarterfinal matchups were:

Walnut Hills vs Highland

Westshore vs St. Xavier

Archbishop Moeller vs St. Edward

Marysville vs St. Ignatius

There were the teams from the north seeded #1 through #4, and from the south seeded #1 through #4. All four quarterfinals were competition, ith Walnut Hills having to battle to get past a tenacious Highland side 24-21. St. Xavier defended well at the key moments to beat Westshore 21-12, while a physical Moeller side held off St. Edward 24-17.

Ignatius was in control for most of the game but Marysville did get a try in late after a long period of possession, making it 31-7 for Ignatius.

St. Edward worked through two more close games, beating Highland and Westshore to take 5th.

Cup Semis

In the cup semifinals St. Xavier had the lead but struggled, as the game went on, to contain Moeller’s power runners. In the second half, Moeller started to bust through tackles, and came back to win 28-19.

St. Ignatius also ran into trouble. Penalties and a couple of ill-advised decisions saw Walnut Hills take a slight lead in the first half. A palpable relaxation among the Ignatius players, plus some shifty work from Tom Passerallo, got the Wildcats on the front foot and they scored three tries in the second half to win 28-12.

St. Xavier would go on to beat Walnut Hills to take third.

Meanwhile, there was also a Shield playoff for the teams seeded #5 to #8 in the South and the North. Shaker, from the North, beating St. Charles, Dublin (in a close one), and, in another competitive game, the Dayton Northern Force in the final

So there was some thought that this would be a close final. And when Ignatius were called for an illegal fend, it looked like maybe ill-advised penalties might be the Cleveland’s team’s bête noire.

The Final 

But Ignatius defended superbly, taking the big Moeller players down by the ankles, and, crucially, usually only needing one player to do it, leaving the other six to spread and defend.

This led to a couple of turnovers. Colin Spellacy showed some fancy footwork to score an early try for Ignatius. Passerallo and Mark French also found ways through or around with a turn of pace and some sidesteps. But the real factor for Ignatius was their ability to stay spread with or without the ball, and, on attack, make the ball do the work.

Tommy McManamon charged through a gap and the work of the Ignatius big guys, including Rafe Gabrovsek and Bryce Comeau, kept the Moeller defense concerned about the middle. As a result, those on the outside, Jimmy Coughlin, Joe Deinhart, and Passerallo, all had space to make their moves and score.

Perhaps the best example of this was a scrum inside Moeller’s 22 in which French took the ball across the face of his backline, faking two switch moves. The Moeller defenders had to respect those fakes, so French was free to cut up, creating a two-on-one, and then floated a pass to Passerallo for a try in the corner.