Gonzaga HS is thinking national championship again and took an impressive step toward that end with a 34-12 defeat of St. Ignatius out of Cleveland.

This is a regular meeting between these two teams, and it's often very close. While still a competitive game, it was a little more on Gonzaga's side, and there's a reason for that.

"We’ve got the sophomores and juniors from last year starting to emerge as leaders on our team," said Gonzaga Head Coach Peter Baggetta. "We also have some guys who have been varsity for three years. And they've been doing the work."

Under the watchful eye of captains John O'Toole, Alex Billups, and Joe Royston, the Gonzaga players worked hard in the offeason on weight training and skill work, and it paid off with a quick start.

"We're a bit further ahead than we have been in the last couple of years," said Baggetta. "I credit the captains for that. Overall we were really pleased with the balance on our team. We’re seeing a good mix in our forwards and backs in what we’re accomplishing and I was really happy with the physicality we bring."

For St. Ignatius, they were trying to find warmer weather to play in, and ended up on a cold day in DC. Head Coach Dan Arbeznik was looking for a solid outing from an experienced group, and he got some good moments, and some not so good.

"We started 13 seniors, and they had a lot of rugby experience between them, but not a tremendous amount of A-side time together," said Arbeznik. "At this point in the season in missing some of our winter sports athletes and very limited practice time together."

This was the first run-out for St. Ignatius, and they learned a lot, but it didn't help to lose one starter to an injury one minute in.

"All of our backline set-piece stuff pretty much had to go out the window and defending their set-piece was now a bit of challenge with the re-toggled lineup and roles," said Arbeznik. "All of that said, our kids learned a valuable lesson.  We preached all week about field position and needing to play in their end. Instead we took the first six penalties of the game and nine in the first half alone; compounding our ill-discipline was the unforced offensive errors."

Gonzaga wasn't perfect, either, but they did a better job of making sure any mistakes happened near the Ignatius tryline.

With O'Toole and Matt Freeman leading the way in the forwards, and with flyhalf Juan Molinari controlling the field position well and passing quickly to get out of trouble, Gonzaga was able to play with less pressure.

Gonzaga already had a game under its belt, and with play Fort Hunt, Raleigh, and Xavier before touring Portugal. Baggetta expects there to be a slipup or two as he throws his players into the deep end.

"An early-season loss is never a big deal for us," said Baggetta. "We’ve never been undefeated since I've been here and I doubt we ever will. We have to continue to build and to do that we have to continue to compete."

One other stat of note: Gonzaga HS has 210 players, an astounding number for any high school program. There are over 60 freshmen alone, with 15 of them having played rugby in middle school. The JV group has about 60 as well, while the two varsity teams (Black and Purple) have 40 players each. Baggetta said the growth is due to family connections as much as anything. There are a lot of younger brothers coming to play, and sons of fathers hwo played. But the biggest family connection has been through moms.

"We are seeing more and more kids whose moms played rugby in college and loved it," said Baggetta. "And I have always said to get kids playing rugby you have to win over Mom."

We’re trying to find that quarterfinal team …. Don’t play the same team 3 days in a row