Ohio’s Saint Ignatius school shook up the single-school rankings with a two-game sweep of teams in the DC area, including a defeat of GRR/FloRugby #2 Gonzaga.

Ignatius kicked off the trip with a 19-14 victory over Gonzaga, which has been a national champion or runner up for the last five years. In a defensive battle with Gonzaga hammering Ignatius through the forwards, neither team could break through until just before halftime. That was when Alex Schum scored, and Declan Boldy converted for a 7-0 lead.

Gonzaga came back int he second half, scoring just a few minutes in to tie the game at 7-7. The Wildcats responded with a try off a dive by senior Nick Zolikoff with 18 minutes left, unconverted, and Ignatius led 12-7.

Gonzaga then took the lead for the first time with a try that was converted by Owen Sheehy to make it 14-12. But just four minutes later, the Wildcats snatched the lead back when Carl Felder pushed over the line and Boldy hit the conversion to make it 19-14.

Ignatius held on for the next few minutes to close it out.

"Our defense was exceptional,” said St. Ignatius Head Coach Dan Arbeznik. "We defended for long stretches of the game but would not let them into our try-zone."

Ignatius also, interestingly, won the B-side game 15-0. 

Saturday night the Ignatius and Gonzaga players attended Catholic Mass together, and that left Sunday morning open for another rugby game. This time it was Georgetown Prep against the Wildcats.

Schum opened the scoring once more, and Georgetown responded with a try and a conversion. After that, though, Ignatius controlled much of the game. Janniel Badeas scored two tries to give his side a 19-10 at halftime.

In the second half, Ignatius pulled away. Badeas, John Stuhldreher, and Alex Chura all scored and Schum led the defensive effort for a 38-10 victory. 

Once again, the Ignatius depth was on display as the B side won 32-0.

Arbeznik was very pleased with the weekend.

“We spent the first 20 minutes of the game being penalized for being offsides and defended our line repeatedly,” said Arbeznik of the Gonzaga game. But Gonzaga couldn’t find a way through and eventually elected to kick a penalty goal. The kick missed and Ignatius lifted the siege thereafter.

“The remaining 50 minutes were much more closely contested with both teams getting their fair share of ball and application of pressure. Gonzaga dominated our lineout and stole most all of our ball. We counter-rucked repeatedly, poached, and were able to choke-tackle tall ball carriers. With slow-ball, they found their three-quarter line under pressure when it was able to come out from the ruck.”

Happy that Ignatius was able to disrupt Gonzaga’s phase play, Arbeznik said it’s back to the drawing board on the lineout.

“We've done nothing but spend time on our lineout, so it was quite the eye-opener to have it so thoroughly dominated,” he said.