Defending Single-School National Champion St. Ignatius of Cleveland opened their season with two matches in two days, winning both.
The Wildcats have, like many teams, been battling snow and cold weather. They do have access to an indoor facility and that certainly helped them.
On Saturday Ignatius faced off with a very good Bishop Dwenger side and Dwenger showed they were up for it. After weathering some territorial kicks the Saints powered through for a try and an early lead.
Dwenger has some size in their forward pack and that will stand them in good stead over the season.
However, Ignatius started to put some things together and camped out in the Dwenger 22. It took a few attempts but finally they did score, with prop Grayson Halkiadakis blasted over from short range.
A second try through the forwards, capping off some pressure with a pick-and-go from prop Rowan Lobozzo. That put Ignatius into the lead and when Halkiadakis burst onto a flat pass her wasn’t to be stopped.
From there Ignatius pulled away, taking the game 49-12. Kevin Hoffman and Henry McGowan combined for a 7-for-7 day on conversions—Hoffman was the main kicker but he was in the sin bin for two of the Ignatius tries. Lobozzo was named player of the game for his immense work rate, as he is more of a loose forward who can prop than a classic big-body prop forward.
On Sunday, Ignatius traveled to Cincinnati for a league match with St. Xavier. On a brisk, windy day, the Wildcats mixed up their lineup against a St. X side that was missing some players thanks to illness.
Missed connections and a little bit of impatience saw Ignatius lose some scoring chances, but as the game went on they started to put some attacks together.
St. X did well to get out of trouble and used their kicking game to good effect to turn the field. But they struggled to finish, also. Finally Ignatius was able to go wide off a scrum center and had the support off the ball to drive it over. They scored off short yardage not long after that and then used their maul to set up another. A short lineout play netted another try for Ignatius and they started to take control of the scoreboard.
With the defense playing very well Ignatius ended up taking a 41-0 shutout.
It was a busy weekend for the program as a whole with six games across multiple sides.
For Head Coach Dan Arbeznik, there were good moments and not-so-good moments. Ignatius ran into penalty trouble against St. Xavier and that, he said will need to be cleaned up.
