The Iowa High School Rugby Association held its 2^nd annual 7s championship this past week with plenty of drama. Urbandale defeated Dowling in the Class 4A final 35-28 in sudden death - tournament MVP DeAndre Moore scoring the winner. Meanwhile Iowa Falls-Alden won the Class 1A title 49-28 over Hoover.

The IHSRA is unique in that it started its competition playing 7s. Single schools could much more easily field 7s teams than 15s teams, and throughout the early part of the spring the teams have participated in a series of 7s tournaments. The rules are a little different to once again accommodate the realities of starting a team. There are no conversions – all tries are 7 points. The scored-upon team restarts with a free kick at midfield.

Because the teams can restart quickly, and the game moves very quickly, two officials are used to keep track of all the action.

“Fourteen months ago we had 26 kids playing rugby in Des Moines, now we have over 220,” said Chris Draper, who started the program. “We now have high school kids playing rugby for their schools four days per week throughout April. We have more coaches and administrators in this single year than the aggregated history of high school rugby in the entire state of Iowa. We have traditional rivals going at each other as hard as any football game in our state.”

Iowa HS 7s Stats Player School Tries Assists Tackles Evans DOW 17 1 13 Bottenfield VMR 14 0 11 Casebolt ROS 13 0 38 Porter CLK 13 1 15 Moore URB 12 0 13 Cox VMR 12 0 1 Eggers LIN 9 3 21 Augustine URB 11 0 9 Tystahl DOW 9 1 17 Shipley NEW 7 4 0 Lewis ROS 4 6 43 Sama EST 8 1 10 Freed CLK 8 1 4 Tapia LIN 6 2 41 Kelly LIN 4 6 18 Manuel ROS 5 3 24 Stock NEW 5 3 0 Lavia VMR 3 5 19 Brown ROS 5 1 24 Watson CLK 6 0 8 Flood DOW 4 1 18