The Serra Varsity Rugby team powered past a well disciplined and effective Saint Ignatius (SI) Rugby team on Saturday, with a final score of 37 to 12. Although the SI team moved the ball well out to their backs, the Serra defense repeatedly met the SI runners behind the gain line and kept them from passing the gain line for most of the afternoon. When Serra had possession of the ball, the Serra runners repeatedly punished the SI tacklers with coordinated forward POD play that moved the ball five to 10 meters forward on most runs.
The game started with Serra receiving the kick-off from SI. There were several probing plays by the Serra forwards. Then Drew Takapoutolo broke loose on a long darting run for 50 yards, where he made a pass to Parker Van Doren, who brought the oval almost to the goal before making the pass to Will Orecchia who took the final pass and dotted it down for the first try of the game. Orecchia completed the conversion to make the score 7-0. Serra continued to make progress with their forward play. After a penalty and a kick that put the ball on the five-meter line, Leo Flores scampered around the pack on the weak side and dived in for another try making the score 12 to 0. After the kick-off from SI, Takapoutol made another break through the SI defensive line and after the pass from Takapoutol, Van Doren forced through several tacklers and took the ball 15 yards to put another 5 points on Serra side of the scoreboard to make the score 17 to 0.
After probes from both sides for 10 minutes, SI took advantage of a Serra penalty to pass the ball out to the wing and score five points making the score 17 to 5. It was not too long before Peyton Thomas broke through multiple SI tackles to score another 5 points for a score of 22 to 5 in Serra's favor. Takapoutolo then dodged and weaved around and through multiple SI tacklers to touch down another try under the posts to make the Serra total 27. Serra missed the conversion kick so the score was 27 to 5 in favor of Serra when the half time whistle blew.
SI started the second half with some strong runs, including a break away run on the west touch line, which went through for a try. However, the runner tapped the touch line so the play was called back. After the line out the SI backs took the ball through hands to the east side where Elijah Farrah ran more than 50 meters to touch down the second (and last) try for the SI team making the score 27 to 12.
The Serra team continued to stop the SI advances behind the game line. After another 10 minutes of play going back and forth, Orecchia took a tap from a penalty, and passed to Van Doren who rambled and forced his way through five SI defenders. After the resulting ruck Paki Latu took the ball forward a few yards and off loaded to Tevita Heimuli who crashed through several tacklers using his 6 '3," 235-pound stature to ramble for 35 meters to the 15 meter line of SI. Thomas took a quick tap from the penalty and drug a gaggle of SI bodies with him to smother the ball under his body to score the try. With the score 32 to 12 Serra was not quite finished. Dylan Modena finished the scoring for Serra with a punishing run of about 25 meters to score under the posts. Serra missed the conversion.
The final score was 37 to 12 with Serra winning the first "All Saints" Rugby game.
