The Redhawks’ JV High School Team finished its successful 15s season with a big win over North Meck 55-22.  The Redhawks started strong in the first half and established a commanding lead.  In the second half, North Meck inserted their varsity backs but, nevertheless, the Redhawks continued to dominate play and win comfortably.   

With the High School 15s season now complete, we will now transition to 7s.  We plan to take a couple of weeks off (ith practice optional during the next two weeks for the High School kids) and then we will practice 7s on Saturday mornings from 9-11 a.m. at Baileywick Road Park.  Stay tuned for the start date for those practices—we likely will start those in June.  For the next two weeks, we will support the middle school and U12 teams in their pursuit of the State Championships at the Carolina Cup in Charlotte on Saturday May 14th.  Any help will be much appreciated before our 7s season commences.

As you know, the Redhawks were founded 6 years ago and, as such, we are now starting to see our players off to college!  That is both very exciting for us as an organization but also quite bittersweet as we have had the pleasure of coaching and watching these kids mature for years and we now will watch them embark on their quest towards adulthood. So with great pride and well wishes, we congratulate our Graduating Seniors:

Jack Sanner, our High School JV number 8 and Captain is off to UNC Chapel Hill.

Jack has had a phenomenal year at number 8.  He has demonstrated impeccable leadership skills as the Redhawks’ captain and he has led by example in every game this year.

Jack’s performance was also exceptional off the field. His SAT scores of 2140 and his resume is very impressive - GPA 3.8 un-weighted (4.5 weighted).  Jack had several excellent college options available to him due to his strong academic record and, after much thought, he ultimately decided to stay close by at UNC Chapel Hill.  Jack plans to continue his rugby development, joining the Tar Heels rugby team. We wish Jack the greatest of success on and off the field and we look forward to watching Jack represent the Redhawks well while wearing Tar Hill Blue next season.

Seth McGann, our High School JV scrumhalf is off to Duke University.

Seth has also been a leader on and off the field.  Though Seth has only recently started playing rugby, he was an incredibly quick study.  His performances this year earned him an invitation to the High School All-Stars.  Unfortunately, Seth was unable to accept that All-Star invitation since he recently accepted a full scholarship from the Military and the scholarship does not allow his participation in sports.  Seth, like Jack, is a performer on and off the field–being active both with his church and with his studies.  Hopefully, his military commanders will realize his great rugby potential and will allow him to continue his play at Duke.  If not, we are ceratin that Seth will be successful in all of his pursuits.

John Paul (JP) Baric, our High School JV fullback and wing, is off to NC State.

JP has slotted in comfortably at fullback and wing this season.  He also had the opportunity to play alongside his brother Michael during several games this season.  JP had major contributions on defense in try saving tackles and his strong running with ball in hand helped the Redhawks to big wins this season.  JP will pursue his education at NC State.  A budding entrepreneur, don’t be surprised if we don’t see JP listed in Forbes 100 in the future!

Eshan Patel (Flanker), is off to UNC Charlotte.

Esham came to us via Wake Young Men's Leadership Academy.  Esham was persuaded to participate via his Friends Patrick, JP, Seth and AJ.  Esham is very athletic and would have had a successful season with our program but he unfortunately tore his ACL early in the season so missed most of the season due to that injury.  Esham will be attending UNC Charlotte.

Please join the Redhawks coaches in wishing our graduating seniors the greatest of success and in thanking them for all they have done for the Redhawks!  Each of them will remain a Redhawk for life and they are always welcome to stop by our practices to say hello and help out whenever they are in town.   

All--

1.  Redhawks Games this Weekend. 

Please note I have just been informed that there has been a change to our game time Kick off! Now: 1:15 pm

1:15 pm Kick OFF

Chestnut Square Park, 320 Chestnut Pkwy, Indian Trail NC  28079

2. All-Star Update.  Good luck to the Middle school players trying out for All Stars this weekend.

 Congratulations to the following 5 High School players invited to the All-Stars selection process

 Seth McGann, Jackson Cranor, Deshawn Harris, Kris Thomas and Evan Thomas

3.  Remaining Season.  The 15s season is winding down.  After this weekend in Charlotte, all we have left is a game next Saturday in Southern Pines against North Meck from the Charlotte area.  15s will only remain for players that were selected for All-Stars.

Don’t forget to register for the camp

Registration link is as follows:  http://northraleighyouthrugby.siplay.com/site/

4.Summer 7s.   After the North Meck game, we plan to take a couple or so weeks off.  We will then re-start our program on Saturday morning at Baileywick Road Park for those interested in participating in the sevens season(which will be in the Olympics this summer).  We will have a preliminarily 7s game against Fayetteville either May 14 or 21st.

We will enter a 7s team in the State Games in Raleigh on June 11 and the Queen City 7s tournament in Charlotte on June 25.  Also looking at one other tournament in June/July.  The college 7s national championship is also being held this year at WakeMed soccer complex on May 27 and 28—so anyone interested can go watch the top college teams compete for a national championship.  We will also have volunteer opportunities for ball boys and girls for the event.  Details will be coming on Sunday.

Thanks for your and your son’s support of the Redhawks!

Best, Andy

Review of 3/12/16 game


After a slow start for the Redhawks (we were intimidated by the size of their Varsity seniors) it ended in a rough day for Grimsley yesterday against Redhawks. After starting strong, the Tornados lost two players due to injury. With Grimsley giving up too much space out wide to the RedHawks backs the Redhawks run up the score to a 67-32.

The team played very well against a physical and fast team. We were excellent in the rucks and finished off some great tries during the course of the game. It’s important to remember to go “forward” with the ball since you are at risk standing still when taking possession. We also gave a few tries with simple mistakes. To the positive, the coaches could not be more proud of the way the HS players performed this weekend. We have been emphasizing improvement from each game to the next and I believe the boys continue to achieve this in spades.

I am still waiting on a copy and link the game 2 of “ruggerfest”. I will be using this video to help with players that are on the bubble with All-Star selection. Also I am hoping to secure footage of the Grimsley game. As soon as the videos are available I will share.


Next 3 weeks schedule:
We have no games scheduled for the next 3 consecutive weekends.

March 19/20th This coming weekend was scheduled for a bye for the Redhawks . I did reach out to a few teams but there was no availability for a friendly.

The lower ages (Middle school) will be traveling to Richmond on Saturday if you wish to support (expected noon-kick off):

Pouncey Tract Park – 4747 Pouncey Tract Rd. Glen Allen, VA 23059

March 26th/27th Bye all teams-Holidays

April 2/3 Bye all teams- Easter Holidays

Practices:

Week March 20th- We will have practice Tuesday (March 15th) and Thursday March 17th)

Week March 27th –We will have practice Tuesday (March 22nd and Thursday March 24th)

Week April 3rd – Optional for high school (March 29th or March 31st)


Gonzaga Jesuit Tournament (April 16th/17th)
We will be fielding a Freshman-9th Grade team in the Gonzaga tournament. The following players have committed to the tournament and will be contacted by David Krosner on tournament details etc.

Matthew Airey, Ty Gray, Zyon Johnson, Koby Baker, Kris Thomas, Michael Fisher and Caleb Faneuf.

We believe if all our experienced players go, we will have a great chance to win this tournament and this is a tournament that will have lots of private school, college and USA rugby selectors watching.

Middle school games were cancelled due to pending lightning today. Of course the weather forecast never matches the predictions