When the referee blew his whistle to signal the end of the Greenwich High School rugby team’s game, there was no denying how much the hard-fought victory meant. The celebration was on.
Whenever Xavier High School clashes with the Cardinals, people expect a high-quality match and Saturday night at Cardinal Stadium was certainly no exception.
After a back-and-forth final 20 minutes of the second half, it was Greenwich that stunned Xavier with a last minute try and came away with the 34-29 victory.
“This feels great,” GHS head coach Joe Kelly said. “This is one of our goals for the season every year and they achieved their goal. Before the game we said that no matter what happens, if we win this game, no one can take this away from us, no matter what happens the rest of the season. This victory is huge for this team.”
To say that the rivalry has been one-sided is an understatement. In Greenwich’s 30-year history as a program, they have only beaten Xavier two other times, five years ago and in 1999.
“I have been waiting four years for this, ever since I started playing my freshman year,” GHS senior Luke Bienstock said. “We have been told that Xavier is the team that we have to beat and it feels amazing to finally get it.”
They have come close several times. Last year they fell by only one point, losing the lead late in the contest.
“I watched the game five years ago and I thought that was amazing, but this is just awesome,” GHS senior Soh Nakayama said. “I have been trying to get to this point for four years. We did it. The intensity for this game was different all week. We just wanted to beat this team.”
Although Big Red built an early 20-7 lead and carried that into the second, Xavier chipped away and took a 22-20 lead. However, that’s when Greenwich stepped up its play in a big way.
“Last year the same thing happened,” Bienstock said. “We were up by a lot and they came back, but we said that it wasn’t going to happen again this year. We put our heads down and played the game that we wanted to play.”
Just after Xavier claimed its first lead of the contest, Greenwich’s Patrick McTiernan charged the line and intercepted the ball. The play seemed to catch Xavier off-guard and McTiernan ran down the far side of the field for the try. A Nakayama conversion gave GHS the 27-22 lead with 10 minutes to play.
“Patrick took a risk and the risk paid off in a big way,” Kelly said. “When he did shoot the line, he got the ball, the other team was flat-footed and he scored the try. That was very exciting and very emotionally rewarding experience. It helped us achieve one of the goals we set each year.”
Xavier, one of the top high school rugby teams in the country, wouldn’t go down quietly, as they netted a try and conversion with six minutes to play that helped them reclaim the lead.
“There was no give-up in this group and no thought of give-up,” Kelly said. “Every player on our team was on that field to win this game. When we down, they still knew that we had to win this game, so they came back and grabbed victory. They saw victory in their reach and instead of letting it slip away, they grabbed it, embraced it, held on to it and won the game.”
However Big Red wasn’t finished. With about a minute to play, the Cardinals gained possession of the ball off a Xavier turnover and it was Erik Menchaca’s try that gave Greenwich the thrilling 34-29 victory.
“This feels absolutely incredible,” GHS senior Parker Kelly said. “This is something that I have been waiting my entire high school career for. We lost by one point last year and right now I am loving life. Tackling was so important tonight. Fitness and running 10 laps a day is what helped us win tonight.”
Greenwich started Saturday night’s game at Cardinal Stadium on fire. After Nakayama tallied three points for Big Red, Fermin Moraiz and Kevin Kumar picked up key tries. Nakayama got into act as well by finding the try zone before halftime to give the Cards the 20-7 advantage.
While Big Red was able to tally its fair share of points in the contest, it was the defense stepping up big time that won the game GHS.
“Tackle, tackle, tackle,” Joe Kelly said. “The boys practiced all week on tackling. We knew we had to tackle them hard and that’s what they did. They stepped up and courageously tackled.”
Coming off a hard-fought Jesuit Classic in which GHS finished third overall, Bienstock said that it was obvious that the team needed to improve its tackling.
“I think our physicality won the game tonight,” he said. “Offense worked itself out tonight, but it was our defense that stopped Xavier.”
For Greenwich, this was the kind of game they were dreaming of since last year’s 37-36 loss to Xavier. Not only did Big Red get the victory Saturday night, but they did so in front of a raucous home crowd at Cardinal Stadium.
“It was absolutely incredible,” Parker Kelly said. “The Cardinal Crazies came out and they were fantastic tonight. I can’t thank them enough. Playing in front of all the people here tonight is something that I’ll never forget.”
“This was bigger than most of our football games here,” said Bienstock. “We had the Cardinal Crazies out and they definitely helped us out. We heard their chants and I think it definitely rattled Xavier. It made a difference.”
To read more on the game and to hear how Greenwich will use the Xavier victory as motivation for the upcoming High School National Championships in North Carolina, check out Friday’s Greenwich Sentinel.
