Traverse City Wins Michigan HS Boys Final
Traverse City Wins Michigan HS Boys Final
Traverse City defeated Detroit Central Cathollic 14-5 Thursday night to win the Rugby Michigan state championships.
HS State and Regional Championships 2023-24
This was a superb effort from Traverse City as in nine in-state games DCC had scored 609 points in nine games (average just under 68 points per game) and had topped 100 twice.
Traverse City kept the Shamrocks' attack in check in what was a hard game at the point of contact.
However, Traverse City Head Coach Cornel Olivier said his own team's attack had held in check, too.
"We ended up making too many errors on offense and couldn’t get the machine running like we are used too," Olivier told GRR.
DCC scored first to take a 5-0 lead. Slowly Traverse City got their attack going and answered with two tries. Lock Michael Caughran powered over for the first try, and No. 8 Caleb Bott scored the second. Flyhalf James Theunte added the lone conversion.
Discipline was an issue for both teams in the semifinals, with repeated cards seeing TC and DCC shorthanded even as they won their games. Discipline issues undercut DCC again this time around, as referee Olivia Rogers showed a DCC player a yellow and, when that yellow was not received in a sportsmanlike manner, added another yellow to make it a red.
Over the course of the season, Traverse City, like DCC, had a fairly dominant points for and against ration. But really it was their defense. The Alliance scored 391 points in eight games this season, good for just under 49 points per game. But their 44 points allowed, 5.5 per game, was what got them the state championship.
