Impressive Second Half Sees La Salette Take Illinois Title
Notre Dame de la Salette followed up on their 3rd-place finish at the Boys HS National Championships with wild win over the Marist Redhawks to take the Illinois School-team State Championship.
La Salette struck first, with prop Seamus Hanlon taking it to the corner and a 5-0 lead. Marist responded with center Kevin Tompkins charging over after a lineout. The conversion gave Marist a 7-5 lead. Redhawks fullback Micheal Flynn helped add to that lead, blocking a La Salette clearance kick for Thompkins to grab and take over the line.
Down 14-5 La Salette got a try from captain and scrumhalf Saulo Cruz off a scrum five meters out.
La Salette Goes 3-0 to Win Midwest Championships
Notre Dame de la Salette won the Boys Midwest Championships over the weekend, defeating Penn HS, St. Edward, and, in the final, Bishop Dwenger to take the trophy.
Playing rival Penn for the second time this season, La Salette looked for a repeat of their 43-17 national qualifier victory earlier in the season. The game started out with some early knock-ons, but the Lions fixed the turnovers when Gerard Neinabor poached the ball in the ruck and set up fullback Connor Hanlon for a try three minutes in.
La Salette Impresses Against Ranked Opponents
Notre Dame de la Salette made a bit of a statement this weekend with two well-taken wins over St. Edward and St. Martin's.
St. Edward from Cleveland and St. Martin's Kingfishers from Kansas converged on La Salette's campus in Illinois for a weekend of games. St. Martin's beat St. Edward 36-24 while NDDLS beat both by similar scores: 45-5 over St. Edward, and 43-13 over St. Martin's.
On Friday night in the first matchup, wind, which was to be a theme the whole weekend, was gusting up to 40 mph. La Salette, however, was unfazed playing into the wind, racing out to a 26-0 lead at halftime. The second half continued is similar fashion. Playing against the wind, and struggling to keep pace with La Salette’s outside attack and especially their ability to offload out of contact, St Edward was unable to close the gap.
New Trier Defeats La Salette in Illinois New Trier pulled off a big result in Illinois, beating Notre Dame de la Salette in a midweek clash 22-7. This was New Trier's opening league game and a strong showing for the school team. It was a wet day with steady rain, and ball retention was difficult, so both teams tried to keep the ball among the forwards to control it. La Salette struggled to capitalize on early scoring chances in the first half, but New Trier was able to maul in two tries from lineouts inside the La Salette 22. LaSalette had a lot more possession the second half, spending significant time in the New Trier 22 and finally scored to make it 10-7. But from there/ New Trier had the run of play.
STA Impresses at SLUH Tournament The SLUH All-Catholic Tournament finished up with a strong performance from St. Thomas Aquinas. Led by their second row pairing of Jake Ernsting and Carson Kraft, the Saints beat a very good SLUH team 14-3. STA’s defense was very solid, with flanker Trever Mogren making some key plays in the breakdown. Yes Max and Mike Doerfler were strong at No. 8 and flyhalf, respectively, and the team overall played superb team defense. SLUH had their moments. They used prop Kodi Cade to push the gain line and scrumhalf David Kuebler to push the pace. Babson commit Trey Dino was solid as well. But STA did really well to defend their line. They gave up some penalties, but they weren’t going to give up points. Kraft put the game away with a rollicking charge through tacklers from 25 meters out, and that was it. Overall St.
Last-Second Penalty Sees Neuqua Past ND De La Salette
Two of the stronger teams in Illinois faced off over the weekend and the game proved to be as close as you'd hope.
La Salette was undefeated in-state and Neuqua had lost just the one game as they traveled downstate to Georgetown, Ill.
Match conditions were ideal save for the gusting winds that made the kicking game a material challenge for both sides. The match started out in typical fashion with both sides exchanging some hard-charging runs to probe and test the other before Neuqua opened its account with a penalty kick at the 11-minute mark to go up 3-0.
Defensive Patience Sees St. Ignatius Past La Salette
St. Ignatius defeated Notre Dame de la Salette in a crossover match between two ranked school-supported teams Saturday.
It was the third game of the season for Ignatius and the first for La Salette, which made the 6-1/2-hour drive to Cleveland early on Saturday morning. The difference in game time was clear as the La Salette team played hard and was very effective in several areas of the game, but couldn't break a patient and physical Ignatius defense. Final score 49-0.
Neuqua Keeps Rolling With Win Over La Salette
Neuqua continues to post impressive results in Rugby Illinois and this weekend was no different, as the Naperville, IL school defeated Notre Dame de La Salette 43-10 in league play.
The game was close throughout the first half, but in the second, Neuqua began to pull away. In the opening 20 minutes the game was somewhat back-and-forth. Neuqua wing Carl Reina capped off a nicely-worked movement to score early, but then the game settled down as both defenses held firm. Finally, La Salette scored to tie the game 5-5, and then with Neuqua down a player due to a yellow card, took a 10-7 lead with about five minutes left in the first half.
(Neuqua try-scorers at left, top to bottom: JJ Robertson, Rudy DeDeaux, Brandt Stare. Lori Chevalier photos.)
Midwest HS Tournament For Real, And Seeding It Is Tough
The Midwest Boys HS Championships kicks off this weekend and it's a new-look tournament.
Previous years have seen the tournament split into HS Club and Single-School brackets. However, that has not been the best option, especially as Royal Irish has won fairly easily on the club side.
This year, then, the two brackets have merged at the very top, leaving an eight-team bracket that includes four teams set to go to the Boys HS Rugby National Championships.
But, the seeding is difficult, and in this article we thought it would be worth breaking down how you seed such a tournament.
Here goes:
La Salette Strong Over SLUH In Opener
The Notre Dame de La Salette Lions kicked off their season with a weekend matchup against the Baby Billikens of St. Louis University High this past weekend, coming away with two victories.
The La Salette 2nds defeated SLUH 81-0 in the opener. fullback, Ian Somdahl opened the scoring, and Nicholas Babic, Daniel Prather, and captain Benedict Pietras set the tone up front.
The 1sts then faced off. Flyhalf Egan Quain put La Salette in scoring position with a well-struck kick to touch on a penalty, and from that lineout, senior center Will Schroeder raced in. Eight minutes later, his midfield partner David Szemborski also scored.
Rugby Illinois Crowns Boys Champions
This past Memorial Day Weekend the best young men and women in the state of Illinois gathered to battle for the title of State Champion. Morton West High School in Berwyn, Illinois, hosted this year’s games. Matches throughout the day were fierce in competition and showed tremendous athleticism. Some games were close until the final minutes, others were major upsets.
The Frosh-Soph match was the first championship of the morning in Berwyn. Brother Rice faced the Chiefs in the grass fields. The Chiefs came into the season with a bit more experience behind their belt with a middle school feeder program,but the newest players for Brother Rice were not only able to keep up with the Chiefs, they were able to win with a final score of 37-22.
Neuqua Wins Big One in Illinois
Neuqua HS is now 3-0 in the Rugby Illinois Suburban league after defeating Notre Dame de La Salette 20-17 on Saturday.
It was a long day of rugby for La Salette, as they played two league games, beating the Fox Valley Chiefs 39-0. But for Neuqua, this was a big result.
Changes in Rugby Illinois, Indiana Boys Leagues
Big changes are afoot in the Midwest leagues, as both Rugby Indiana and Rugby Illinois have made some adjustments.
The changes come about because of Notre Dame de La Salette. The small Catholic school in downstate Illinois has for years been a nationally-ranked program, and has traditionally played in the Rugby Indiana Super League.
