Eagle Impact Rugby Academy Southern California defeated Rhinos Academy and EIRA Midwest Blue to win the Boys Tier 1 bracket at the Rocky Mountain Challenge.

EIRA SoCal won 38-14 and 55-15, finishing the weekend 4-0 with 123 points scored and only 36 allowed.

Rhinos Academy took 3rd, beating 5785 Blue 24-0. 

For SoCal, Miles McCormick captained the team and was a force at No. 8. Levi Summerland and Tiaan Mosconi were very good as the halfback combo.

The other five teams played an elaborate second day of competition. Here's how it panned out:

Colorado went 1-1, losing to Badger Selects 36-33 and beating EIRA Heartland 27-12.

EIRA Heartland also went 1-1, beating 5785 Green 32-12.

Badger Selects also went 1-1, losing to EIRA Midwest Red 31-24.

EIRA MW Red went 2-0, beating 5785 Green (who ended up 0-2), and Badger Selects.

Tier 2 Boys

In Tier 2, EIRA Midwest Blue shut out EIRA Heartland 48-0 and defeated EIRA SoCal 14-10. 

EIRA SoCal took 2nd, EIRA Heartland 3rd after beating Badger Selects 36-5, and 5785 took 5th.

Tier 1 and 2 Girls

The Tier 2 Girls event ended up being just two teams, with locals Rugby Colorado and mostly-local 5785 playing each other four times. Each won twice, with Colorado winning 48-26 and 46-43, while 5785 won 45-34 and 44-30. Same points for and against, so it was a tie.

For Tier 1, Rhinos was 3-0 in pool play and then slammed 5785 55-14 to win outright. Colorado beat EIRA Midwest 22-12 to take 3rd in the four-team event.

As we reported a couple of years ago, the move to force younger players to only play in Tier 2 (aka JV), and force older players to only play in Tier 1 has essentially killed all-star rugby for girls.

Many girls who are very capable players are freshmen and sophomores. Others are very successful academically and move ahead a grade, but are held back as rugby players due to age. Conversely, many junior and senior girl rugby players are good, but still learning. Many are good leaders and teammates, but not top-tier select players. They would benefit greatly by being in a JV all-star team, and their maturity would help the younger players, as well.

But the movement to separate these teams by age has made if very, very difficult to get te numbers required to be successful in all-star play.

Younger Levels

The RMC did have a middle school bracket. For the girls 5785 went 3-1, beating Texas and Superior to take 1st. For the boys, Rhonis and EIRA Midwest Blue both ended up 3-0-1. Rhinos took 1st on points difference, with 5785 3rd, EIRA SoCal 4th, and EIRA Midwest Red 5th.

Eagle Impact Rugby Academy

EIRA supported this tournament about as much as you can, entering every bracket except Girls MS, and going (by our count) a combined 26-18-3. Take out the one game we're not sure about (no result listed so we listed it as a tie), and the games where EIRA teams played other EIRA teams, and their overall record was 18-10-2.