Top HS Club Charlotte Cardinals Impresses in Win Over St. Ignatius
Top HS Club Charlotte Cardinals Impresses in Win Over St. Ignatius
The Charlotte Cardinals defeated St. Ignatius 43-12 Saturday in West Virginia in a meeting of the #1-ranked HS Club and #1-ranked school team.
It was not the best day for Ignatius, which committed several fairly uncharacteristic errors, many of which were punished several by the Cardinals. But that’s not to say the Cardinals were handed the victory. The Charlotte club executed superbly, attacked at every opportunity, and showcased some significant skill in a team atmosphere.
Charlotte kicked off and won the ball in the air to get on the attack early. Quick ball, and a penchant for punishing the 1st channel when the Ignatius defenses didn’t clamp it down got the Cardinals close, but they were held up. Ignatius was able to kick clear but the Cardinals came back and when they blocked a box kick the ball fell to wing Alai Uaisele, who worked his way over to score.
Ignatius was able to pressure after that, but their maul was stopped and a couple of runs from scrumhalf Mark French and center Colin Spellacy led to nothing. And when the Wildcats had a miscue on an attacking lineout Charlotte exploited an overlap, shipped it wide, and were soon in Ignatius territory. Scrumhalf Poter Kuebler quick-tapped on a penalty and it was 12-0.
The Cardinals ran their attack with spark, with every player looking to make a move and attack and yet also quick to pass if nothing was there. Some elusive running from Kuebler, flyhalf Max Colson, and centers Luke Zehmke and Zane Schumacher, combined with consistent offloads kept the ball alive and Ignatius backpedaling. Finally lock Quinn Miller took an offload and was over to make it 19-0 after 22 minutes.
A partially blocked kick led to Kuebler scoring a second, and then, just as Ignatius was threatening, a knock-on led to a scrum and a long run from Uiasele for his second. The senior wing was making his first start for the Cardinals 1st side after dealing with injury and he was impressive.
That made it 31-0 at halftime. Ignatius entered the breaking knowing they had made several mistakes—unforced knock-ons, two charged down kicks, missing touch on penalties, and lineout miscues. With Charlotte catching everything and making very few errors, no wonder the scoring was one-sided.
The second half picked up for Ignatius. A brilliant kick-through and toe ahead into space by Spellacy allowed the center to score. With Charlotte taking two unnecessary yellow cards (one for playing the man without the ball and one for a high tackle), the Cardinals were under a bit more pressure.
Still they put Colson straight through off a lineout for a long-range run.
Ignatius came back with one of their best sequences that sent wing Jimmy Coughlin into traffic. The wing did very well to elude a tackle and bull through another to score in the corner to make it 38-12.
Ignatius came right down to put themselves in scoring position again only for the lineout—something they normally execute well— to once again give them trouble.
Instead it was Charlotte who ended the scoring with a try in the corner to make it 43-12.
Charlotte Head Coach Jason Zehmke said he was pleased with the team’s showing and emphasized that they work very hard on playing quickly and getting defenses to be out of position. This was certainly in evidence in this game.
For Ignatius, Head Coach Dan Arbeznik said it had not been a good week of practice and he had entered the game concerned about the teams energy level. They certainly didn’t take the momentum back, and Arfbeznik added that this came was a good opportunity for his team to understand that nothing will be handed to them.
This is the first meeting of these two teams but it won’t be the last. They played a U16 match as well, won by Ignatius, and pledged to meeting again next year with perhaps more teams in the field. If there was an unsung hero of the game it might have been flanker Sean Butler, who was very active for Charlotte, but the big boys such as Miller also produced key plays such as the chargedowns and causing some problems in the Ignatius lineout.
“It was a fantastic day of rugby,” said Zehmke. “Teams like this need to play each other. We have to challenge ourselves and this was a good challenge for us.”
