The Midwest Thunderbirds, Panther Rugby Academy, and NOLA Gold Academy faced off in Nashville in a small select side tournament over the weekend.
It was a good showing for the Thunderbirds after a huge camp in Indianapolis that featured over 180 players from nine different states in three age groups. That preparation set them up for some good results, but the model of the camp and then the tournament is a good model for these regional teams.
Scores, in the end, aren't the goal, said Eddie Abel, who runs the program. "We just use the week to work on skills and evaluate for roster selections for the MAAC which we'll be attending next weekend. It's also fun to play our counterparts at USA South. We would love it if more regional teams assembled and were available for games."
The MAAC will be held in DC and will feature some regional select sides plus several MLR academies. The Thunderbirds program has support from the Chicago Hounds MLR team and is at the very least progressing toward being a Hounds academy program. The Panther Rugby Academy, meanwhile, is working on their player pathway toward the Rugby Americas North U19 championships to be held in Mexico in July. The Thunderbirds split up their teams into Green, Yellow, or White in order to give every player as much game time as possible.
They worked with top coaches from the area, including Luke Gross (Indiana), Danny Breda (Trine), Corey Momseun (Thomas More), and Dustin Steedman (Davenport).
Under 15s
For the Thunder birds U15s several teams showed well.
Marcio Tavolari showed the ability to play multiple positions and was very good at all of them. Center Sam Hawkins out of Fishers led the U19 White team and made several line breaks, while West Ottawa product Noah Bosma ran support smartly and was a good goalkicker for the White team.
Pulaski's Quinn Leimkuehler was a powerful ballcarrier and showed solid leadership for the Green team. He was supported by Carmel's Isaac Pimental, who kicked well. Grady Wafford (Fishers), Rowan Branham (Pendleton), and Isaiah Bocek (Oshkosh) all meshed quickly as a backline for the Yellow team, while Carden Stevenson (Fishers) and Fua Taumalolo (Hopkins) were big units who carried well.
Abel said many more players performed well.
"The whole age group worked hard while assembled and put in a lot of good reps during training," he said. "It's the best group of talent I've seen assembled at this age group in the US—a lot of really strong players."
The teams played each other and the Panthers, with all three Thunderbird teams winning their games against the PRA team.
