The Southern California Varsity Red league is all up for grabs after Torrey Pines rebounded from a bad loss to record an impressive victory.

Torrey Pines was undefeated going into last week's clash with Fallbrook, but were summarily thrashed 51-0. In their defense, they'd not played in a while due to a forfeit game, struggled with yellow cards, and were missing five starters due to injuries. The response by the Torrey Pines coaches was to remind the players that rugby is supposed, and also acknowledge that the players were likely tired after going straight from football to rugby. So Tuesday's practice was at the beach. The team loosened up, the injured players came back, and it was all just in time to take on undefeated Cathedral Catholic.

The result was a somewhat surprising 28-7 victory that essentially puts Cathedral, Torrey Pines, and Fallbrook in a three-way tie for 1st in the league.

Torrey Pines was led by captain and HS All American Torran Raby, but it took a complete team effort to unseat the Dons. 

"A win like this, after a full team collapse last week against Fallbrook, makes us coaches scratch our heads," said Torrey Pines Coach Matty Sandoval. "It's a reminder that we coach and teach kids, and focus and effort can change drastically one week to the next. This time it was our turn make a showing against our private school rivals up the street." 

The playoff picture in the Red Division gets murky as the top three teams now have one loss each, with Cathedral having defeated Fallbrook early in the season.

Fallbrook won comfortably over La Costa Canyon, while Del Norte edged Poway.

So we have a three-way tie at the top of the standings, with points difference sorting them out. The teams have one more weekend of the regular season slated for February 20, and then the playoffs. St. Augustine has the fourth spot wrapped up, at least, and with a defeat of Cathedral in two weeks, could actually move up. Fallbrook plays Poway and Torrey Pines plays LCC on February 17. LCC has to fit in a game against Del Norte on February 21.