Deep South Rugby Memorable Events 2013-14

This is the annual look back at the past rugby year and an attempt to list main events from the 2013-14 season. Items are in no particular order; although, NORFC going to the division 1 final would be hard to top. Please, send suggestions for other events and people that should be included to: deepsouthrugby@hotmail.com

#1 NORFC faced Life in the USA Rugby Division 1 Men’s Club National Championship Final. To get there, they defeated the Sacramento Lions 62-32 in the quarterfinals and the Dallas Reds 34-29 in the semi-final. NORFC lost 39-7 in the final. (*The national championship had something like an east and a west division this year as some top level clubs like Glendale, Seattle, Denver,  and San Francisco split off to play in a newly formed  Pacific Rugby Premiership.)

#2 Montgomery Yellowhammers made Division 3 national quarterfinals. To get there they won the inaugural True South Div. 3 title by defeating Tallahassee 60-27 and defeated Asheville 32-8 in the round of 32 and Gainesville 17-14 in the round of 16. The Yellowhammers fell 25-12 to Old Blue of NY in their quarterfinal match.

#3 Loyola (Deep South 2014 champ) defeated Sewanee 14-10 to advance to NSCRO South Championship. The captured the south championship by defeating Valdosta State 19-15 and Montclair State 43-13. In the national round of 8 Mount St. Mary’s University from Emmitsburg, MD, came from behind to defeat Loyola 24-23.

#4 Cam Falcon   (Shaw, LSU. NORFC) was selected to theUSA Men’s National 15s squad for the 2013 Americas Rugby Championship. This team competed as the USA Selects, and full international caps were not awarded. The Americans defeated Canada Select and Uruguay and lost to the Argentina Jaguars.

#5 LSU loses 50-19 to Central Florida in the round of 16 of the Division 1-AA College National Championship. Central Florida went on to defeat Arizona 64-13 in the final.

#6 NORFC players selected to play with Houston in the Elite City 7s tournament that coincided with the USA vs Scotland match in Houston in June, 2014. (* = NORFC)

Houston Sevens Roster

Will Burns, *Chance Doyle, *Adam Ducoing, Ruben Gonzalez, Kenneth Hepburn, *Bobby Johns, Pete Kanick,i Levi Kereti, Alex Miles, Connor Mills, Matt Radzavitch, Chris Saxon, Chris Slater, Brad Vaughn

#7 The New Orleans Royales  competed in the Elite division of the 2014 Las Vegas Invitational. The Royales won 2 and tied one in their pool. They beat the national side of Peru (35-0), the select side Atlantis (22-7) and tied Bahamian select side cOUScOUS (19-19). In the knock-out round they lost to Lionhearts (31-14) in cup quarterfinal and Mapleleafs (26-12) in consolation semi-final.

#8 Loyola University is ranked 8^th and University of West Florida 13^th by the NSCRO 2014 ranking of top 15 small college men’s 7s rugby sides.

#9 Deep South area players (*Bishop, Smith, & Moyes) are selected to play for US South Panthers vs Cayman Islands in North American Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) championship: Lucas Baistrocchi (Florida) *Tyler Bishop (Tallahassee) Waymon Cassel (Greenville) Wayne Chermely (Knoxville) Cathal Doyle (Life) Ty Elkins (Charlotte) Amro Gouda (Charlotte) Jesse Hackworth (MTSU) Chad Haynes (Knoxville) Stephen Hickey (Augusta) Jason Hinchman (Charlotte) Matt Hughston (Charlotte) Charlie Hutchings (Tampa Krewe) Chris Milledge (Charlotte) *Drew Moyes (Univ Mississippi) Ben Paul (Columbus/Fort Benning) Jesse Posnansky (Athens) Chris Sigmund (Charleston) *Brendan Smith (Birmingham) Tom Snow (Chattanooga) *Chris Scott Terrell (Montgomery) Jonathon Toombs (Nashville) David Winiarczyk (Old White).  Bishop, Moyes, and Smith were also selected to play in US South’s 33-6 win over Bermuda. Chance Doyle from NORFC was also selected for Bermuda match.

#10 Tallahassee won the south pool of Division 3 in the new True South region. Battleship placed 2^nd over Okaloosa and Gulf Coast. Pensacola and Panama City did not compete. Tallahassess lost to Montgomery in True South Div 3 Finals. Tallahassee moved to Florida Union at end of 2013-14 season.

#11 Shaw defeated Brother Martin 47-22 for Louisiana/Deep South High School Championship. Because of conflicts with exams and proms, no Louisiana team participated in regional play.

#12 With effect from September 1, 2013, USA Rugby South ceased to exist as an operating body for overseeing rugby in the former south territory. USA Rugby South would continue to support select sides.

#13 New Orleans Royales (NORFC 7s side) qualified for the 2013 national club side 7s as 2^nd seed from the south. Atlanta Old White defeated the Royales in the final. At the national championships in Pittsburgh on August 10^th the Royales lost their 3 pool matches to Old Blue, San Fransico Golden Gate, and 1823 (Columbus) with 40 points for and 57 against. On the 2^nd day the Royales went undefested to gain the Bowl trophy (9^th place) . In the Bowl final they defeated 1823. At the time of writing the New Orleans Royales had qualified for the 2014 National club side 7s tournament in Seattle to be held weekend of Aug. 9-10 as South’s #1 seed by defeating Atlanta Old White 26-5 in championship of regional tournament held in New Orleans.

#14 Louisiana Rugby formed as an SBRO ( State Based Rugby Organization).

#15 St Pauls in Covington and West Jefferson Buccaneers played their first high school season.

#16 June 20, the Louisiana Exiles traveled to Life University to participate in the southeast R.A.S.T. (regional all-star tournament). The Exiles were composed of twenty five high school rugby players representing a host of local high schools including: Shaw, Brother Martin, Lake Area, Rummel, Jesuit, Destrehan High, West Jefferson, Catholic High (BR), and Mississippi.In pool play the Exiles defeated Florida 36-10 and lost to Tennessee 14-17. Despite losing a match in pool play, the Exiles won their pool based on point-differential. In semi-finals Exiles defeated Georgia All-Stars by a wide margin and lost the championship 21-14 to North Carolina.

#17  DeepSouthRugby.net covered the following international rugby matches: USA vs Canada in Charleston, USA vs Uruguay in Montevideo, USA vs New Zealand Maori in Philadelphia, Las Vegas International 7s, Women’s International 7s in Atlanta, and USA vs Sacramento.