Berks Takes Rugby PA Boys 7s Title
Berks Takes Rugby PA Boys 7s Title
Berks County Rugby won its second consecutive RugbyPA Sevens State Championship this past Sunday, beating Downingtown in the championship game.
The RugbyPA Fall 7s season consists of six rounds of tournaments and a final State Championship tournament. Teams accumulated points throughout the season and were then seeded in the final tournament based on those points totals.
Berks finished the six buildup tournaments seeded second, behind Knightmare. It's worth noting that few teams attended every tournament, and Berks missed one. A closer look shows that while Knightmare earned the most points, Berks had the highest winning percentage and most wins. Unfortunately, the regular season took its toll on Knightmare and they had to pull out of the championship tournament due to injuries. This moved Berks to the #1 seed for the State Championship tournament.
Berks was going into the final tournament with momentum on their side. After finishing the first 3 tournaments with a record of 9-3-1 they decided to take round 4 off. They came back healthy and at full strength for the first time in the season. Berks won the final 2 rounds, going 10-0 in the process and finishing the regular season with a 19-3-1 record.
The state championship had 8 Tier I teams split into two four-team pools. Pool A consisted of Berks County Rugby, Downingtown, Conestoga and St. Joe’s Prep. Pool B consisted of Bishop Shanahan, LaSalle Gregory the Great and Central PA. Each pool team would play each other in pool play and then the top 2 seeds in each would move on to play in the semifinals.
In pool play, Berks started the morning off against St Joe’s Prep. Berks started the scoring within the first minute with the first of three tries by wing Matt Cleland, with Ryan Roman and Marquan Guzman also touching down in a 29-0 Berks victory. In the second pool game, Berks faced off against Conestoga. Jake Stelluti started the scoring for Berks and continued pressure on Conestoga led to led tries by Jax Shingleton and tries by Jamie Rivera and Markus Guzman as Berks won 27-10.
Downingtown also went 2-0 in pool play and that set up a clash between the two to figure out who would take 1st in the pool.
Once again Berks got on the board early. Tries by Baylor Kobularcik and Cleland put them up 12-0 before Downingtown responded to make it a one-score game.
BUt the talented Cleland put the game seemingly out of reach with two tries for a 24-7 halftime lead. Downingtown, which has orchestrated stirring comebacks before, inched closer but Stelluti sealed it. on a nicely-run kick-and-chase and support work. Berks won 31-21.
In pool B, the final pool game between 2-0 LaSalle and 2-0 Bishop Shanahan, would decide who was going to face off against Berks and who would face off against second seed Downingtown.
In a tense game that went down to the wire, Bishop Shanahan came out on top with a 12-10 victory. This set up the semifinal games: Pool A #1 Berks vs Pool B #2 LaSalle, and Pool B #1 Bishop Shanahan vs Pool A #2 Downingtown.
Powerful on attack and in defense, Downingtown topped Bishop Shanahan 40-19 in one semi.
In the semifinal, Berks immediately put LaSalle under pressure, leading to 6-3, 280-lb freshman Josiah Boyer scooping up a loose ball five meters out and reached over. A second try was added by Shingleton and Berks took a 14-0 lead into halftime. Once again Berks showed an uncanny ability to score at critical moments. Right after the break is one of those moments, and 45 seconds into the second half captain Baylor Kobularcik found a gap at the base of the ruck and raced 40 meters for the try to give his side a 19-0 lead. Shortly after Ryan Roman added another to extend the Berks lead to 26-0. Marquan Guzman put down a final try for Berks to give them a 33-0 lead. LaSalle was able to break through for a try on the final play of the game, but Berks had their place in the final.
In the championship game, Berks continued to strike first and went out to a 14-0 halftime lead with tries by Ulices Ramirez and Stelluti. The second half saw much of the same one-way traffic, as Berks added tries from Cleland, Kobularcik, Ramirez, and Stelluti to finish it off 36-0.
“The coaches were very proud of this team all season long,” said Berks Head Coach Greg Stelluti. “After a lot of success over the past year, we knew we had a target on our backs. The boys were under a lot of pressure, and they stuck together as a team each week. It showed because they just kept getting stronger and it culminated into a dominating performance this state championship weekend.”
All the Berks tries on the weekend.