With NorCal and SoCal taking the weekend off for the HSBC LA 7s, there were 43 flavors of club rugby on tap on Leap Day with the Frontier, Red River, and South in action. Additionally, the Pacific Northwest is back after the winter break and ready to show its mettle. It was also a slow weekend for the Women's divisions, as the South was the only to produce matches.
Frontier
Men's
Starting off in Mid-America DII, the undefeated Little Rock Stormers traveled to Kansas City for an interdivisional test. The match was hotly contested until KC’s William Taylor broke the stalemate in the 20th minute and his team never looked back en route to a 36-19 win.
“Our scrum was dominant and provided an excellent attacking platform,” KC head coach Pat Clifton said. “We stole several against the head. We also left a lot of tries on the board through handling errors in the red zone. Ollie Jones is the best flyhalf on the field every time we play, and Saturday was no different. His boot was fantastic, as was the service between him and scrumhalf Dillon Brannen. Despite getting a yellow card, Ryan Koberstein was stellar on the wing.”
In the second match of DII, the Arkansas Gryphons won on the road versus Tulsa, 16-14. The Gryphons ground out the win with exemplary forward play and two drop goals. With the win, Arkansas evened its record to 3-3 while Tulsa is still searching for its first ‘W’.
Pacific Northwest
Men's
Awoken from its winter slumber, the Pacific Northwest is back. In DII, the race for the division title is wide open with five teams within seven standing points of each other. After Saturday’s results, the Tacoma Nomads and the Boise United are at the top at 4-2 with wins, Eastside Tsunami and Portland fell to 3-2 with a pair of defeats, and ORSU is in fifth at 3-3 after beating Portland.
In a rematch of the last game of the fall, Boise United took revenge on the Eastside Tsunami for a hard-fought 34-19 victory. Playing forward foot team rugby, Boise earned the win and the try bonus to take over the lead in the standings.
“We were able to execute on our game plan and kept our structure,” Boise United co-captain Zundel Molifua. “Tsunami is an athletic team with really good playmakers. We aimed to keep possession of the ball and make them play defense. Our set piece was strong with PJ Winder making a couple steals in the lineouts and our pack dominating the scrum. The man of the match was winger Kylle Walkolski who stole a couple of high balls off the restart enabling us to maintain possession. He was a constant threat on the wing and in the backfield.”
Like Boise United, the Seattle Quake avenged its final loss of 2019 by beating the Chuckanut Bay Geoducks, 17-12. It was an intense defensive battle for 80 minutes.
“We stuck to our game plan and didn’t panic when we fell behind,” Seattle coach Jack Ray said. “We spent the week before the match working on our defense which was lacking the first time we played Chuckanut. Our communication and tackling were greatly improved… What helped us most was being able to score first and not playing the whole match from behind. Hayden Malan did a great job distributing the ball between the forwards and the backs and once we were able to suck in their defense, it opened up our backline to score the first try.”
Elsewhere in DIII, the Clark County Chiefs improved to 5-2 with a 17-15 scorcher against Boise United D3 and Portland blanked ORSU, 12-0.
Red River
Men's
Traveling to Houston light due to injury and availability, Dallas pulled it together for a 43-24 win over West Houston. The Reds trailed at halftime but the defense stepped up after the break shutting out the Lions while scoring 22 points. Captain and eightman Dale “Cheese” Russ led the scoring with a hat trick and Jonny Heron, Pete Hamm, Mattie St. John, and Collin “Boogie” Yerian set the tone with their defensive prowess.
“Once we got into our rhythm and started playing the fast-paced physical brand of rugby that we are known for, we got our stride,” Dallas Director of Rugby Filip Keuppens stated. “We will be getting a significant number of players back from injury this coming week and look forward to ramping up as we make our push towards the playoffs.”
In DII game of the doubleheader, Dallas blasted the Lions, 55-31. Four players scored a pair of tries and with the win, the Reds are on the outside looking in at 3-2 in fourth place. In the South/Central division of DII, Houston Athletic pulled away from San Marcos in the second half for the 34-14 drubbing.
South
Men's
With the Charlotte at Asheville match canceled, the only Carolinas-Georgia DII game was between Southern Pines and the Greenville Griffins. The match turned out to be a penalty fest with multiple cards given out to both sides. Ultimately, the game came down to a last play try by Greenville’s Greg Renwick to tie it at 24 all. The conversion failed and each team earned the draw.
“I was very proud of the determination and fight that our players gave all game long,” Greenville captain Alex Wholers said. “The team struggled with yellow cards all game long that put us in a situation where we needed to play with a lot of discipline defensively. We found ourselves down to just 12 men at one point in the first half. The boys continued to fight to get to halftime down only two points. The second half was a battle back and forth with the lead changing several times. With no time on the clock and down five, we were able to get a late try into the corner to tie the game.”
The Charlotte Barbarians strengthened their record to 5-1 and a two-way tie for second in the Carolinas DIII with a 41-17 victory over the Clayton Bootleggers. Clayton scored first to open the match, but Barbarians pillaged the rest of the way.
“Our forwards dominated the set pieces and this was critical in our scoring sequences,” Charlotte head coach Justin Gray said. “The score doesn’t do the game justice as our forwards had to work very hard to match Clayton’s intensity and physicality to make that happen.”
For the Georgias DIII, the Savannah Shamrocks and the Gainesville Spartans ran up the score on their opponents, the Atlanta Old White doubled up High Country 31-14, Augusta pounded Athens 53-5, Columbus/Fort Benning walloped the Atlanta Bucks 131-5. Donovan Mikelson, Ricky Riley, Zachary Despain, and Lucas Ziller each scored three tries in this week’s high score.
In the final weekend of Florida DII, the division leaders won out setting up the postseason schedule starting on March 21st. Boca Raton and Miami Tridents took care of business in the South beating Okapi Wanderers, 41-22, and Fort Lauderdale, 48-12, respectively. Up North, Tampa fell one converted try short of qualifying for the championship group as they lost 26-21 at home to Naples.
The championship round will feature round-robin games between Miami Tridents, Naples, Boca Raton, and Orlando, with games on March 21, April 4 and April 18. Whoever tops the group will be declared state champion and will advance to South Playoffs.
Palm Beach remained in second place of the Florida DIII with a bonus point win at home, 34-3, over a short-handed Bay Area Pelicans side. According to Palm Beach head coach Chris Oosthiezen, it was a "sloppy win, but a win… We regrouped well in the second half to start to play our structure. Once we regrouped, we added 29 points in the last 40 minutes to win 34-3.”
Gainesville kept pace with the Panthers in third, one point back, after their own bonus point win, 43-0 at Sarasota.
The True South entered its fifth week of the spring with a pair of matches in DII. The Knoxville Possums picked up their first win of the season against Baton Rouge, 36-27, and New Orleans cracked Nashville 41-13 for its second victory.
New Orleans head coach Chalie Baleirara gave the game ball to his lock William Waguespack. “Big carrier, defended really well, and showed true potential for 80 minutes… We stuck to the plan by playing on their half and capitalizing on opportunities.”
Down in DIII, the Pensacola Aviators are still undefeated following 72-21 dismantling of Panama City Beach and New Orleans fell to the Crescent City Blues 74-7.
Lastly, the Atlanta Renegades defeated Chattanooga 31-19 in a DII match. “Despite the pace of the game being compromised by field conditions, we were able to move the ball to space once we created mismatches,” head coach Matt Dallow said. “Hats off to Chattanooga for playing a very direct game and keeping pressure on for the entire 80.”
Women's
The South saw all three of its GU competitions in action last weekend. DII Carolinas-Georgia kicked off the spring portion in a big way, as Eno River traveled to Augusta in search of its second win of the season. A thriller evolved, but after tries from inside center Kelsey Rene (who also kicked the crucial conversions), wing Patty Darden and flanker Erin Kaplan, Eno River emerged with a 28-27 win.
“This is exactly how we wanted to start the spring season: with a high-energy win over a tough opponent,” Eno River coach Sarah Deaner enthused. “We’ve got our eyes on a playoff spot and have been working on a new attacking strategy for the last year. Our focus is on continuity and support, and I was impressed with our newer players stepping up and by how our vets are leading by example.”
The Furies are now 2-3 but picked up important bonus points in the loss. Savannah (4-0) still leads the seven-team league standings, and Southern Pines (3-1) is not far behind. The two meet on March 28.
Fort Miami is now 2-2-1 in DII Florida after a 36-14 win against Indian River (0-4). The visitors established as 12-0 lead as lock Sydnee Meriwether and No. 8 Hileia Freybe crossed for tries and wing Karen Liu kicked the first of three conversions. The Raptors answered with seven points, but then tries from outside center Morgan Brown, Meriwether (2) and Freybe and Liu’s conversions established a 36-7 lead into the final 10 minutes of the match. Indian River capped the game with a second converted try.
Tampa Bay (3-1) and Orlando (2-1-2) are currently tied on standings points, but the latter has played one more game and the Krewe has a better point differential. This weekend, Tampa Bay hosts Indian River, and Jacksonville (2-1-1) travels to Orlando.
The DII True South GU is divided into two groups of three teams, which play a home-and-away series against their pool mates for a total of four regular-season games. New Orleans, Louisiana Lagniappe and Battleship are together, while Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville compete against each other within Tennessee. Saturday’s Minx vs. Stone Lions match game was rescheduled for March 21, and all three teams in the Tennessee pool are currently 1-1. New Orleans beat Battleship for its first win of the season, having dropped both matrix matches in the fall. At present, Lagniappe is the only undefeated team at 2-0 and the only team to win on the road.
