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A Special and Surprising Curtain-Raiser for the MLR Final

HS All-Stars, Rugby Rhode Island, Rugby Connecticut

A Special and Surprising Curtain-Raiser for the MLR Final

The Ponaganset Chiefs boys won the state title, and provide several players to the Rhode Island select side to play Saturday.
06.27.2025 - Alex Goff

Age-grade select sides from Connecticut and Rhode Island will play each other Saturday as curtain-raisers to the Major League Rugby between the New England Free Jacks and Houston Sabercats.

For Connecticut, this is just another step in what they have been doing for a few years. Their boys program just came off winning a tournament with New Jersey and Met NY, and with several teams in the state—Greenwich, Trumbull, Fairfield Prep, Fairfield Pegasi—having strong seasons, they have a weath of knowledgeable players to draw from.

Coaches Austin Ryan and Ben Brzoski will suit up the following roster: 

  1. Sebastian Guzman
  2. Hunter Bailey (vc)
  3. Aidan Byrne
  4. Lorenzo Villa (captain)
  5. Henry Tymniak
  6. Dylan Stanton
  7. John Morris
  8. Brendan Walsh
  9. Harry Crawford
  10. Wilbur Hughes (vc)
  11. James Callaghan
  12. Brady Dennett
  13. Keane Horne
  14. Alex Iadarola
  15. Finnbarr Mulcahy
     
  16. Samuel Richardson
  17. Asher Goldstein
  18. Torin Cosgrove
  19. Mac Knox
  20. Mason Beardsworth
     

Connecticut All-Stars Win Tri-State Tourney

But that's just part of the story. The fact that Rhode Island can even field a select side is a big deal. Rhode Island rugby got hit hard by COVID and also by the development of the MIAA league in Massachusetts, making it harder for Rhode Island teams to play Massachusetts teams.

R10s Youth Invitational

But there were rugby devotees who wanted to bring it back and were ready this year to field at least one team. This came from the efforts of people like Daniel Mejia-Onat. It was through Mejia-Onat that the first club came to be—the Providence Purple Knights, so called because the nickname merged the mascots of the three high schools that provided the players.

Mejia-Onat set about trying to get more schools interested.

"Getting interest for one team showed us something," he told GRR. At the same time there was a movement afoot elsewhere in the state to get some teams going. 

"This year I hoped we would get something going, and then it suddenly happened," said Mejia-Onat. With support from the Providence Pirates senior club, and then further support from the New England Free Jacks, Rhode Island Rugby ran a 7s season for four boys teams and a two-team girls season.

The Purple Knights were joined by the Ponaganset HS Chiefs, Exeter/West Greenwich, and The Green School. Suddenly they had a league. They played a full schedule of games, with Ponaganset having the best record, and the two girls teams, Foster/Glocester Chieftans and the Purple Knights, ended up tied at 4-4.

The teams played a championship final tournament with the two girls teams splitting again, but Chieftains winning on points difference. Ponaganset held off the Purple Knights 12-10 to secure the top spot for the boys.

It was, al told, a massive success for a league formed out of whole cloth. And then it got bigger. The plan was always to expand into 15s, but over time. Then the MLR final was set for the Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket, RI, it seemed right to bring the new Rhode Island HS league into it. Calls were made, and Mejia-Onat was asked, could these athletes learn 15s?

"I said, 'you've given us three weeks and I think we can do it in three weeks,'" and off they went. The players were told to discard all the instinctive things they had started to learn in 7s, and be open-minded. They have embraced the new challenge, said Mejia-Onat.

So Rhode Island HS rugby went from not existing to playing a full 7s season of four teams to learning 15s, to field a select team (the Quahogs) against Connecticut, to playing that game as a curtain-raiser for the MLR final.

Life comes at you fast. 

Here's the roster that will face Connecticut:

RI Select Side:

1. Ason Jones (Prov)
2. Jesse Wright (Chiefs)
3. Zaynadin Adam (EGW)
4. Riley Flamand (EWG)
5. Alex Justiniano (Prov)
6. Logan Smith (Chiefs)
7. Kyle Limoges (Chiefs)
8. Nicholas Torres (Prov)
9. Agusto Rodiguez (Prov)
10. James Graneville (Green)
11. Jakob Waugh (Chiefs)
12. Adyhi Mitchell (Prov)
13. Michael Lee (EWG)
14. Zakareeya Hilmy (Green)
15. Hunter Henrikson (EWG)

16. Dylan Burdick (Prov) Prop
17. Nicolas Mejia (Prov) Scrumhalf
18. Shangeeth Jaseeharan (EWG) Wing
19. Blake Moreau (EWG) Lock
20. Ayden Fiatoa-Fautua (Prov) Prop

HS All-Stars, Rugby Rhode Island, Rugby Connecticut
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