The Texas Youth Rugby Association honored its elite players and coaches during its award banquet held during the TYRA State Championships in late April. The banquet was attending by 250 people on the campus of St. Thomas High School with RFU’s Lynn Evans as the keynote speaker.

St. Thomas’ Conor Mills was named Texas Player of the Year.

Mills, a junior flyhalf, had a record setting season. As captain of the Eagles, he led his team to a state championship, a western championship, and a return trip to nationals.  Mills amassed 204 points on the season, including four drop goals. He scored more than 20 points on four different occasions during this year’s campaign.

Mills was named to the USA U17 National team and earned caps against Portugal, England, and Romania during the highly successful tour (scoring tries against Lincoln Schools and Portugal).  He was also chosen 1st team All-State and All-South by TYRA.

Katy’s Neil Dougherty was chosen the Coach of the Year for U19 Clubs and John Connelly of Strake Jesuit was picked as the single school Coach of the Year. Dougherty’s teams came away with an impressive sweep of the TYRA state championships (multi-school) and his U19 club just won the Western multi-school championship.

Connelly was responsible for starting a new team at Strake Jesuit. His team was highly competitive for a first-year program, taking fourth at state.

The TYRA All-State teams saw an impressive number of age-grade USA Eagles named. Nick Roach, Joel Marek, Mills, Paul Rogers, Byron Henry, Andres Diaz and Mitch Early all saw duty with various age-grade teams which recently returned from England.

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