Saturday’s Rugby NorCal (RNC) High School 7s Championship saw 15 girls’ sides report to the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif. Teams were divided into Cup, Plate and Bowl brackets, and the tournament also made space for single-school teams low on numbers. St. Francis High School out of Mountain View took top honors, going undefeated in the Cup bracket.
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RNC Executive Director Nate Dalena indicated that the competition had lost a couple of teams (including 2023 champion Saints, which was present Saturday but in a Mixed Motley fashion) but there were better numbers overall. Several teams had two sides. Carondelet (Walnut Creek) brought 35 players and three sides to Stockton and had by far the most impressive numbers. Coach Janet Miramontes had credited the roster bump to doing all the recruitment and visibility work ahead of the Olympics and then being properly positioned for the USA 7s bronze and Ilona Maher effect.
Carondelet Cubs / Photo: Jackie Finlan / @therugbybreakdown
Carondelet’s top side qualified for the Cup bracket alongside St. Francis, Rio Americano (Sacramento) and Tamalpais (Mill Valley) — the top-four teams in the league. Teams played a round robin to name the champion, and the Lancers, which brought varsity and J.V. teams, went 3-0 for the trophy. St. Francis beat Tam 31-12, Rio Americano 24-17 and Carondelet 22-15 to end the day.
Senior Kina Latu was an unrelenting force through the middle of the pitch, and displayed that same power and finesse that helped the San Mateo Wolverines to the DII HS Club 15s national title last May. Freshman Audrey Unga was also superb, shaking out of tackles and speeding away for several tries. Senior Kayla Kronthal was a work horse as well, getting around the pitch on defense and also finishing scoring opportunities.
St Francis’ Unga in the tackle / Photo: Jackie Finlan / @therugbybreakdown
Rio Americano took second place, a solid finish for the second-year team out of Carmichael. The young team is quality and featured some familiar faces that wear Sacramento Amazons and Harlequins kit during the club 15s season. Adi Lagilagi is tough like her older sister, Noa, who is currently crushing it at DII NCAA AIC; and Joanne Karavaki is also solid over the ball and in contact. The Tamanalevu sisters, Lauryn and Ateca, are speedy finishers, and Morgan Saylors had arguably the best dropkick on the day.
Rio Americano / Photo: Jackie Finlan / @therugbybreakdown
Carondelet finished third, winning its match against Tam 24-5, and really pushed Rio in that seven-point loss. Senior captain Amelia Bowes is a fun player – deceptively slippery and happy to deploy a kicking game. Fellow senior captain Jadyn Ard directs from scrumhalf and has great options out wide with the versatile Malia Velasco and super-fast Mikayla Bergman. And the Marin-based Tam battled hard, too. Love the Littler sisters, Evie and Bea, who absolutely do not give up on defense. In one game, both chased down long breakaways and made tackles that prevented the try. They were also part of a beautiful team try against Rio, where the finishing move at first look like a desperate heave out of the tackle. But Evie had an eye on her sister, who was running a hard inside line to the posts, and the offload floated right into Bea’s hands for the score. Real beaut.
Tam’s Bea Littler / Photo: Jackie Finlan / @therugbybreakdown
And that was every team on the day. All of the sides in the Plate and Bowl and Mixed Motley games had moments where everything clicked, or when a connection was the culmination of a fall’s worth of hard work. Mareta Asiata and Paulina Meza captained Overfelt HS to the Plate championship. The team spread out the work well, and then had Siriana Tautolo as a perpetual breakaway, try-scoring weapon. The San Jose team beat Carondelet’s second team, Cougars, 34-5 and Dublin 30-5 during pool play. St. Mary’s, the local team from Stockton, topped its pool after wins against Bishop O’Dowd (19-5) and Edison (38-0). Molly Young and Thailan Brown-Carrier really stood out as dangerous ballcarriers. In the finale, Overfelt prevailed over St. Mary’s for the Plate, aka, 5th place in Rugby NorCal.
Overfelt HS / Photo: Jackie Finlan @therugbybreakdown
Dublin’s Mia and Alyssa Carter, Berkeley captain Ruby Hill, Bishop O’Dowd’s Imara Lewis — there were standouts everywhere one looked, building tons of excitement and momentum for the spring season. Looking ahead, there are a few changes to track. With more teams committing to 15s, there will be a Tier 1 and a Tier 2 for the traditional format of the game. There will also be a 10s competition and see the return of a couple teams into the regular rotation. Also of note, the middle school season will align with the youth schedule — i.e., January-March — as opposed to running currently with the high school club season (March-May). The hope is that a J.V. league will be out and also allows high-performing 8th graders or 14 year-olds some exposure to the high school game.
CUP BRACKET
St. Francis 31-12 Tamalpais
St. Francis 24-17 Rio Americano
St. Francis 22-15 Carondelet
Rio Americano 28-17 Carondelet
Rio Americano 26-19 Tamalpais
Carondelet 24-5 Tamalpais
Champion: St. Francis