The Western Regional Championships

The Western Rugby Union Regional Championships were held April 28-29 in Fort Worth. The Texas Rugby Union qualified five teams for the championships – Alliance (Keller), Dallas Jesuit, Austin, Woodlands, and St. Thomas (my club). The tournament was organized into three pools (A,B,C) of four teams each. The teams that qualified were from the Great Plains RFU, Heart of America RFU, Missouri RFU, Ozark RFU, Rio Grande RFU, and Texas RFU. Geographically, these rugby unions cover most of the western part of the United States and contain hundreds of high school rugby teams.

Alliance beat the Woodlands 17-6 on the first day in a tightly contested match (Woodlands would win 23-5 in a consolation match against El Paso on Sunday). However, they were eliminated from the competition by perennial power the Kansas City Junior Blues the next day. This was a bit of a surprise for everyone as they had entered the competition as the favorites to move on to nationals. Dallas Jesuit eliminated Austin (12-6) in their first match and defeated the St. Louis University H.S. Druids to advance on to Salt Lake City (location of the high school nationals).

St. Thomas played Bixby High School (Tulsa, OK) in the first round and defeated them 48-0. This was a much different result than the championship match in the recent TRU State Championship which the Eagles lost 27-0. STH returned 5 starters who had been missing from that game and dominated Bixby throughout. They won the Pool B championship 16-10 in a thrilling match against De Smet (St. Louis, MO). One of the highlights of the tournament was Conor Mills’s drop goal from 35 meters out at the end of the match (drop goals in high school rugby are extremely rare).

The two Texas teams will go to the USA National High School Championships in Salt Lake City. Only sixteen teams from around the country qualify for nationals, making the tournament the highest level of competition that high school rugby offers. St. Thomas advances as the West’s number one seed and will be in the Tier A competition which means the can finish no lower than 8^th in the country. Jesuit will compete in Tier B and can finish as high as 9^th in the country. Congratulations to both teams as they head to Utah!

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