In a contentious, mud-splattered, afternoon of rugby, two old foes Jesuit and Gonzaga will meet up int the final of the single-school bracket of the Boys HS Rugby National Championships.

The heavy rain that hit Charlotte all day certainly had its effect on the games, especially the single-school games that finished off the day. Balls didn’t bounce so much as go splat, and it was just flat difficult to run fast.

Jesuit ran out to an impressive 20-0 lead at halftime against Penn. They did it by working the kicking game and playing smart for the conditions. But in the second half, Penn slowly started to come back. Jesuit began to get pinged for penalties, and Penn started to get on the front food - pounding it inside with the forwards and challenging the Jesuit defenders to embrace the physicality.

Jesuit decided a little more than an hour before the game to make some lineup changes, moving center Christian Dyer to flyhalf, and moving flyhalf Conrad Hawkins to wing.

“Christian is a good kicker and he’s our most dynamic player, and we felt we wanted to move our most dynamic player closer to the ball,” said Jesuit Coach John Shorey. “Conrad had played wing in New Zealand last year, so we felt comfortable putting him there. We then worked to play for the conditions, play a territory game, and put defensive pressure on them.”

Fullback George Niethammer had a superb game, making some smart decisions, and making a break through the Pennd defense that left players grasping air, before setting up Hawkins for a crucial try.

“We wanted to focus on the little things,” said Shore. “Call for the mark, catch the kickoff, make the clearance kick, when you get to the lineout, do your job.”

For Penn, it was a frustrating game where they found themselves in a hole, got frustrated, and the righted the ship.

“We did exactly what we set out to do, we just did it only in the second half,” said Penn Head Coach Bart Bottorff. “We didn’t play well in the first half. We made some mistakes. But in the second half we got some of the calls and we used our forwards the way we wanted to and we outscored them. I would have loved to have played them on a dry track.”

Jesuit held on 23-17, and then waited to see who they would face.

Photos by Dan Bandoni. Penn in black, Jesuit in gold.

In a wild game, Gonzaga outlasted Xavier 7-0, but were somewhat fortunate to do so. Gonzaga had the run of play throughout the first half. Xavier got into Gonzaga’s half once, getting a lineout to set up a maul which was immediately whistled for instruction (somewhat harshly). The rest of those 30 minutes, Gonzaga camped out in the Xavier 22. They were right there to score, but saw a maul stopped, another pushed into touch, a few mistakes, and some dedicated, brave Xavier tackling. Time and again Xavier would clear with a kick, only to see the ball not go as far as they wanted, and the Gonzaga backs break tackles on their way back to the green zone.

The half ended with Gonzaga getting to the line only to be pushed aside one more time. The half ended 0-0.

But in the second half, Gonzaga did what they had been working to do all through the first half, taking a lineout in the Xavier 22 and clinically mauling it over for a try and the conversion.

Gonzaga looked to add to that score, but again were held out, and then Xavier started to exert pressure. Led by the running of Malik Fisher, Xavier came very, very close. The final ten minutes of the game were played inside the Gonzaga 22, and here Gonzaga was very fortunate. During one sequence, the Eagles were penalized four times within five meters of the goal line, including not retreating on a penalty and collapsing a maul. There was no yellow card, and no penalty try, and while a penalty try is certainly a judgment call, the lack of a card was very surprising.

“I think in the first half we had opportunities we didn’t take advantage of, and that can always come back to hurt you,” said Gonzaga Head Coach Peter Baggetta. “So for the second half we talked about wanting to go up right away and we did that. We had the flow of the game, but we got a bit too loose with the ball and then we spent the last ten minutes playing some tremendous defense. One of the advantages we have is being able to bring some big bodies off the bench, and they made some huge tackles.”

Baggetta acknowledged that his team was lucky not to get a yellow card, and perhaps a penalty try.

“Maybe the referee looked at it and realized it was a 50-50 call,” said Baggetta. 

Xavier defended well despite being much smaller than Gonzaga.

“We are used to being smaller,” said co-captain Zackery Cilmi. “I just told the guys we’re going to have to tackle and tackle. It was hard for us to get the ball to the backline. I think we have one of the best backlines in the country, and we weren’t able to get them the ball and that’s frustrating.”

Meanwhile, St. Edward bounced back from a disappointing loss to Xavier on Thursday with a 22-14 defeat of Mira Costa in an entertaining match.

“We made too many mistakes, I know I did, against Xavier, and we’ve resolved to not let that get us down,” said St. Edward’s Jack Bradfield.

Meanwhile, Greenwich exploded for 38 points in very difficult conditions (as they played on the muddier of the two fields), beating Notre Dame de La Salette 38-7. it was an impressive display of open rugby in tough weather by Greenwich.

So Saturday sees Xavier play Penn for 3rd at 2:30pm, and Greenwich play St. Edward for 5th at the same time. La Salette plays Mira Costa at 4pm in a clash for 7th. And the final will be Gonzaga v Jesuit at 5:30pm.