An exciting series of games punctuated a hot, intense Single-School bracket at the Boys HS Rugby National Championships.

Only one team had a particularly smooth ride to the semifinals as even the lower seeded teams caused their opponents problems.

Herriman 45 Xavier 11

On first glance you’d think this was an easy game for Herriman but it most certainly was not. Xavier came out determined to shake Herriman up and did so. Herriman scored early but then for most of the rest of the first half could not break a tenacious Xavier defense. Frustration kicked in and Herriman tried to push the pace too much. Xavier’s tackling and determination were excellent and with 28 minutes gone it was 7-3. But a key try after sustained pressure in the Xavier 22 put Herriman up 14-3 at the break and the team breathed a collective sigh of relief. 

Xavier did get a try and it was 21-11 at that point. Only in the final quarter did Herriman start to roll in the tries.

Staples 26 St. Thomas Aquinas 22

This is, technically, an upset as the #5 seed beat the #4 seed, but a #4 vs a #5 is expected to be tight and it was.

Aquinas scored two quick tries to lead 10-0 and looked in control, but Staples started to take better care of the ball and worked the passes. They scored two tries to go ahead 12-10 and then two more in the second half to take a seemingly commanding 26-10 lead.

Aquinas, however, didn’t fold and with a Staples player in the sin bin they ran in two nicely-taken tries to make it a one-score game. 

Back at full strength Staples was able to close out the game, but it was a close-run thing.

Gonzaga 33 SLUH 0

There isn’t a lot to say about this game. Gonzaga came out strong and prepared, scored early, and cruised. SLUH had little answer to Gonzaga’s accuracy of play and Gonzaga goes into Friday having been able to give several players some rest.

St. Ignatius 10 Greenwich 7

This game was drama all the way through. St. Ignatius came in ranked #1 and the #2 seed in the competition, but fell victim to some of the mistakes teams new to Nationals make. They played as if they expected it to happen, then played with some panic, and passed up prime scoring opportunities for the shinier objects.

Greenwich broke through for a try in the opening minutes and converted to lead 7-0. Ignatius, expecting to control the game, lost some of their composure after that. They tried to score a try on every movement; they ignored kickable penalties for kicks to touch; they rushed.

The result was, as Head Coach Dan Arbeznik said, a game where “we played very poorly and didn’t execute.”

The Ignatius scrum was excellent, but their lineout misfired on repeated occasions. They got to the tryline only to drop the ball. They got to the tryline again, only to give up a penalty. They had a penalty right in front of the posts, tapped quickly, and knocked it on.

All of this happened with Ignatius controlling field position, but getting no points out of it. Part of that, of course, was due to tenacious and unflinching Greenwich defense.

In the second half, Greenwich had a period of 20-plus phases in the Ignatius end. It was the turn of Ignatius to defense. This they did, not letting Greenwich break through, and finally getting a holding-on penalty that turned the game around. 

From that penalty Ignatius took a lineout, worked down the field, got another penalty, and ultimately punched it in with the frwards. Bobby Voth converted, and soon thereafter added a penalty goal to make it 10-7 Ignatius, and that’s how it ended.

The Ignatius subs who came on provided the impetus and the impact, and, frankly, the composure, to finish this game. Greenwich, with one missed tackle, could have easily won.