MARIETTA, Ga.  -  As an anchor university for rugby in the SouthEast, it was only a matter of time before Life U put itself in the mix as a big stop on the Summer U19 7s calendar.  This past Saturday the university hosted its inaugural U19 7s tournament which was well attended by regional select teams.  The five teams vying for the first Life U 7s HS Cup were:

South Carolina All Stars

Marietta HS Norsemen

National Athletic Village Selects (NAVS)

Alpharetta Phoenix

Charlotte Junior Rugby Association (CJRA) Selects

The format called for each team to play every other team once, with the top two finishers playing a finals match, making for a long five-match day for the top two finishers

It became quickly apparent that the Charlotte and Alpharetta sides were the class of the tournament.  Phoenix showed a finesse passing game and some speed, and Charlotte won with a lock-down defense and traditional 7s strategy of taking the ball through clean clinical phases and exploiting open space with speed to finish.

After a close pool match going Charlotte's way over Phoenix, the two met again in the final.  This one not so close, as CJRA shut Phoenix out.

Here are the CJRA Selects scores by match on the day:

CJRA 29, Norsemen 7
CJRA 50, South Carolina 0
CJRA 36, NAVS 7
CJRA 19, Phoenix 7
Final: CJRA 24, Phoenix 0

The Life U tourney drew such high caliber select teams and is likely to grow in years to come because it is billed and used a scouting tournament.  The Life University rugby department had several scouts on hand taking notes, looking for high school talent to bring on board the Running Eagles in the future.

The CJRA team is made up of top athletes from the two Charlotte area club teams and 5 area single school teams especially to train and compete in elite Summer 7s outings.  Thus far, they are undefeated.