ST. LOUIS - The St. Thomas varsity rugby team won its second consecutive Western Regional Rugby High School Championship last weekend, defeating schools from Nebraska, Oklahoma and St. Louis in the two-day tournament.

The Eagles defeated Westside (Omaha, Neb.) 28-0 and Bixby (Okla.) on their road to the final. The Eagles defeated De Smet (St. Louis) 15-6 in the muddy championship match.

The Eagles faced difficult weather conditions during the final in the wake of a front dropping heavy rain on the area. This created a muddy field and the conditions were compounded by gale force winds which  blew across the field throughout the game.

Despite the conditions, the Eagles came out ready to play and scored two tries within the first 13 minutes.

Flyhalf Conor Mills took a tap penalty inside the De Smet 15-meter line and offloaded to lock Matt Tibilleti who bulled his way over for the try giving the Eagles an early 5-0 lead (3:12).

Mills followed Tibilleti’s try with one of his own when he took another tap penalty from 10 meters out and broke a number of tackles before lunging over for the try at 13:30.

But De Smet was not prepared to concede the match and came storming back with two penalty kicks, one in the closing seconds of the half to make it 10-6 at halftime.

The second half was an epic defensive struggle with De Smet spending much of the half in the Eagles' end. The Eagles were superb in defense and their physical play kept the opponent on their heels.

Mills was finally able to clear the ball with kick and St. Thomas went on the attack. With the roles reversed, De Smet scrambled to keep the Eagles from crossing the try line. Finally, toward the end of the match, De Smet committed a penalty at the 5-meter line. Mills eschewed the easy penalty kick, taking the tap penalty and spinning a pass to fullback Byron Henry who squeezed over for the score.  This proved to be the deciding points.

St. Thomas now advances to the High School National Championships in Pittsburgh (May 30-June 1) in the hopes of capturing their first national championship.

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