7s Eagle Hopefuls in Camp

CHULA VISTA, Calif. – USA Rugby has announced the players to assemble for the second Men's USA 7s team High Performance camp, which icked off Wednesday under the watchful eye of new USA Coach Mike Friday.

Friday and his assistant coach, Chris Brown, were joined by Men's 15s Head Coach Mike Tolkin, Junior All-Americans Head Coach Billy Millard, and Men’s Sevens Director Alex Magleby.

Brown coached nine of the players on the USA Falcons team which won the recent Serevi RugbyTown 7s. Of those, Pat Blair and Aladdin Schirmer are Central Washington University products. Also from that team is Maka Unufe, who was a sensation for the United High School program out of Utah in 2011 and made the USA team that year. He ater took a break, but is back.

Former Bowling Green star Mike Ziegler also played with the Falcons.

Schirmer was actually with the Collegiate All Americans 7s team, but Brown was so impressed with him, he pulled Schirmer up to the Falcons team.

“We had a list of probably 20 players to look at this week and [Schirmer] wasn’t one of them,” Brown said in USA Rugby's announcement. “He started at wing [for us] but moved to forward, and he created the go-forward on that outside channel that we need.”

 

Ben Pinkelman of Colorado State University and the USA U20s has been picked for the team, and among the list, Danny Barrett (Cal), John Cullen (Utah), Will Holder (Army), Madison Hughes (Dartmouth), Ben Leatigaga (Army), Andrew Locke (Army), Rocco Mauer (Bowling Green), Sean Rafferty (Stony Brook), Peter Tiberio (Arizona), and Stephen Tomasin (San Diego State) all have solid college rugby experience.

In addition, Garrett Bender, Tai Enosa, Folau Niua, and Mike Te'o have, like Unufe, solid experience in high school rugby or the age-grades.

Not in camp are former St. Mary's captain Kevin Swyrin, former Southern Utah All American Mike Palefau, St. Mary's and USA U20 All American Kingsley McGowan, and former Cal All American Colin Hawley. All except McGowan have represented the USA at 7s before. All were unavailable but considered.
 

This group will be fighting for one of the 12 coveted spots on the USA team for the opening leg of the IRB Sevens World Series in Australia in October.

 

“I’m sure we’ll have some ups and downs, and you’ll see some quality performances on the circuit, and we’ll have some rough ones,” Brown said. “If you’re doing your role right, you’re going to nullify what the opposition is doing. You have to have the belief of, ‘I’ve done all this hard work – playing this tournament’s easy. I know I can go longer.’ That’s what we’re working towards.”

 

The coaching staff will hold one more High Performance Sevens camp in September for selections to the Gold Coast Sevens travel squad.