St. Ignatius had all sorts of trouble with their crosstown rivals Thursday night, eking out a 21-14 win over St. Edward to secure a #1 seed in the Rugby Ohio Varsity Conference semifinals.
The game also secured the Cavoli Cup for St. Ignatius in the second year of the all-levels challenge trophy. Coming into the match, Ignatius held a 3-2 lead in games involving the Varsity, JV, and Freshman teams.
The Cavoli Cup is named after Dan Cavoli, who was Valedictorian at St. Ignatius and then taught at the school for about 10 years before moving to St. Edward, where he taught for close to 30 years. A hugely influential teacher and mentor, his memory is carried by a challenge trophy that includes all levels of play.
The game itself started with Ignatius have more of the run of play. This was a stop-start match, with neither team able to string together a large number of phases. And that is possibly why, at 26 minutes, it was still 0-0.
But with wing Connor Gallagher kicking expertly from the hand, and the Ignatius forwards fronting up well on defense, St. Ed’s had some difficulty getting out of their own end.
Their defense, held, though, until a penalty and an excellent kick to touch from Gallagher set up a maul and, after that, the forwards to quickly worked it over—prop Rowan Lobozzo summarily drive flanker Jacob Shepard across the line to get the job done. Levin Hoffman was good with the tough-angled kick and Ignatius had a 7-0 going into halftime.
But that quickly turned around. A rather floaty skip pass was far too tempting for James O’Donnell and the Ed’s wing cut it off and sped 55 meters to paydirt. Owen Ahern converted and it was all tied up at halftime.
Ignatius would be forgiven for thinking that they should have been ahead with the amount of territory they had. But it doesn’t work that way. Add to that the fact that starting scrumhalf Harrison White limped off at halftime with an ankle injury that, unfortunately, turned out to be pretty serious, and you had to wonder how the second half would pan out.
It was very much a kicking battle in the second half and both teams garnered some excellent chances from that. Both Gallagher and SEHS fulback Evan Lentz kicked well and handled kicks well, and so did flyhalf Max Delotel. Ignatius had a guys to do that, too, including flyhalf Coen Luecke and fullback Hank McGowan.
As a result, the game was a tactician's dream.
But the game was also frustrating. Far too many penalties were called, and some seemed to only serve the stifle open play from both teams.
About midway through the second half St. Ed’s were pinged for a high tackle. Ignatius took the lineout, and when Ed’s didn’t contest the maul, hooker Mike Friedl smartly just turned upfield. The support inched the ball closer and then reserve scrumhalf Charlie French found center Quinn Ferris, and he bulled through three tacklers to score.
Hoffman was good on the conversion and Ignatius had a 14-7 lead.
With less than 10 minutes to go Ignatius was backed up into their 22. But they forced a knock-on, and from the scrum Gallagher launched a gigantic kick out of trouble. Ed’s had been struggling with lineout ball most of the evening—Ignatius was able to get flanker Charlie Worthington up high and that forced some overthrows.
This time, it was a not-straight, and from the ensuing scrum the Wildcats put center Charlie Banaszak through for a rumbling 30-meter charge. The Eagles scrambled on defense but quick ball from French to Luecke saw the flyhalf get Ignatius closer. The Wildcats went into their short yardage format, although they were a bit far away, and nine surges later, Lobozzo was over.
Hoffman again added the extras and Ignatius was, perhaps, in a comfortable position.
Not for long. A long series of penalties and some hard yards by the likes of lock Brendan Schultz and flanker Patrick Andrews put Ignatius under pressure.
And in fact it was Schultz who charged through for a St. Edward try with time almost up. Almost. Ahern converted and it was 21-14 with a kickoff to come.
