We're looking at Boys HS rugby around the country—here goes.

HS Boys Scores Last Weekend

 HS Club Rugby Rankings Week 12

Boys School HS Rugby Rankings Week 12

Massachusetts

The MIAA has kicked off this week and will have three divisions based on school size with four teams in the Big and the Mid-size brackets, respectively, and five in the small-team bracket, for 13 in total.

Northeast Stuff

The big news was Xavier’s 43-0 defeat of highly-ranked HS club team Fort Hunt. Both head coaches somewhat downplayed the result. It was not Fort Hunt’s most experienced lineup, and Head Coach Dale Roach was looking to put his players in a position to handle a tough game. 

“No excuses,” said Roach. “They played well and were on top of it the whole game. We could have played better and were not able to get anything going all game. Xavier was a great host and had an excellent post-game social.”

We like an excellent post-game social.

As for Xavier, Head Coach Greg Morris said the score flattered them.

“I would say that Fort Hunt was unlucky in the wet weather and fumbled the ball more than they would have expected to,” said Norris. “This allowed us to have a lot of the ball and we were able to move the ball up the pitch. We played well, but I don't think it was a perfect game for us.”

Still it was a good showing for Xavier, who pitched a shutout and also showed some adventure on attack, finally finding a way to get over the tryline. Xavier faces Aspetuck this weekend.

Aspetuck is coming off a tie with Staples, and we look a little closer at that game here>>

Upshot: Staples is good, Aspetuck is good.

Fairfield Prep looks to be coming back and while they lost to Greenwich the score, 31-10, is an indication that Prep is getting back to competitiveness. Greenwich, who lost by only a try to Aspetuck a week before has, like other teams, been looking at their depth. Junior No. 8 Segundo Mas was a standout for them. In New York Rye HS looked pretty impressive in beating New Rochelle 40-0. Flanker Ryan Becton, center Gio Cavatoni, and flyhalf Dan Dalton led the opening game in New York’s D1 for Rye. 

Maryland

The Maryland Exiles tournament saw the Exiles tie Mount St. Joseph's and beat Frederick, while Loudoun County looked solid with two big wins. North Bay edged Frederick. See pictures.

Pennsylvania

Many games on the slate now in Pennsylvania, with their D2 league being pretty robust. Actually, their D1 league is robust, too, with Gregory the Great shutting out West Shore, LaSalle beating Doylestown by 45, and Berks holding off #34 school team Cumberland Valley.

No. 8 Ryan Sauppee scored two tries, fullback Steven Flinton had one, and scrumhalf Cole Patterson converted them all.

“Defensively we are playing much more structured,” said Berks Head Coach Greg Stelluti. “We still need to take care of the ball a little more.”

While CV did defend well, said Stelluti, Berks had more scoring chances and didn’t make them pay off. 

Florida

The playoffs begin this week. Boca won last week and secured the #1 seed. Boca tied their opening game and has won every game since then. Cardinal Gibbons is right behind them, losing only 17-12 to the Buccaneers on March 5.

This week’s lineup of games is:

Jacksonville at Boca Raton

Cape Pirates at Cardinal Gibbons

Hammerheads at Okapi

Key Biscayne at Wellington

Dark horse? Okapi, the team that tied Boca in January. 

Ohio

We go into Ohio a bit here so more we’ll look ahead. Moeller is coming off a game they almost lost vs. St. Xavier, and now take on #1-ranked St. Ignatius now that SIHS has returned from its tour of France. That tour ended with a couple of harsh lessons, so both teams will be looking to take what they’ve learned and improve.

Michigan

The season is slowly coming together and we’re seeing Detroit Central Catholic play some games and put in pretty nice result 51-19 over a tough Toledo Celts team.

Texas

St. Pius X won a key game over Strake Jesuit and St. Thomas beat Lake Travis. We have details on those games here>>

Dallas Jesuit beat Westlake in a good result for them.

Colorado

Things are starting to heat up in Colorado and Valor won over the weekend 29-5 against PAC. Valor’s forwards controlled much of the game and their front row, led by hooker and captain Rylan Palmer, was very good. Wing Wilson Smith and No. 8 Jack Whiteley scored tries to turn a 5-0 deficit into a lead. Both of those tries came from scrums which Valor won against the head. Flanker Niko Zaharas has been a force and he scored two, while Palmer got one.

Southern California

SOC Raptors defeated Thunder and we’ve got details here>> while Belmont Shore defeated Back Bay in a game where Belmont Shore was given way too much space in which to work.

Also ... San Diego Mustangs Down Visiting Snow Canyon

Northern California

We’ve got stuff on NorCal here>>

Overall the games among the top teams in the Northern California have been quite competitive. Six games have been within a try and three more within two tries. By our calculations, unofficially, the records among the teams listed are: Granite Bay 5-0, De La Salle 5-0, SFGG 6-1, East Palo Alto 3-2, Marin 2-3, Mother Lode 4-4, Danville 1-5 (three of those nine close games are Danville losses), and Lamorinda 0-4.

Heartland

Going into the SLUH tournament in St. Louis SLUh is shaking off a tough game against Lindbergh HS. Meanwhile, St. Thomas Aquinas beat local rivals St. Martin’s Kingfishers 34-12. Aquinas was working on their offloads out of contact and sometimes that worked, sometimes it didn’t. Head Coach Tim Kluempers wants his team to be tactically smarter and execute those decisions. Again, sometimes it worked.

Brock Kluempers, Payton Ptasnik, Bennett Bodenhammer, and player of the game Nick Jurczak at scrumhalf. Aquinas is now ranked #6 among school teams. It will be interesting to see how they fare at the SLUH tournament, followed by two games with Kansas City Junior Blues, Eagan out of Minnesota, as well as St. James and Liberty High. 

North Carolina

Cape Fear got three tries from wing Zay Arrington in beating ranked Clayton. The forwards set the tone and got the go-forward and the backs, including Max Smith, Carey Cotes, and Devin Gardner (pictured) above, got the tries. Mason Wiseman also scored. 

Illinois

Jaeveon Hilton, Oliver Kirk, and Jojo Okoh led a Chicago Lions HS team to a 12-0 win over Taft. Notre Dame de la Salette edged Brother Rice over the weekend and then Glen Ellyn beat La Salette 50-28 led by multiple tries each from Joey Pope, Jackson Tomaro, and Michael Short. More games coming. 

Utah

We saw a classic with United and Herriman tying. Genesis started a little rough this season but edged an always tough West Valley side by a point. Layton Christian looked really good with a win over Salt Lake Valley. 

Pacific Northwest

Along with the Idaho-Washington clash: Owyhee Defeats PNW Rival Eastside, we saw Eagle produce another good result with a win over Rocky Mountain in Idaho. In Oregon, Camasa is now 3-0 after beating Summit, while Eastside moved to 2-0 with a 42-7 win over Newberg, and West Valley is 2-0 after beating Three Rivers.

In Washington, the Rainier Highlanders put in an impressive showing with a 30-5 win over Chuckanut despite missing four starters.