St. Thomas won the CRAA D1AA 7s championship to cap off a 15s-7s double repeating the feat accomplished by U. San Diego in 2022.
The Bobcats won the tournament on Sunday thanks to some overtime drama in the semis and then put it all together to win 42-12 over Iowa.
Day One
See our report here: Showtime on Day One at CRAA D1AA Sevens
Day Two Semis
In the 9th-place semifinals, Minnesota ran out to a 12-0 lead over Texas State thanks to a try from Anders Vevang and one from Dominic Kreiling and they held on to win 12-5.
Texas got a big performance from former Ireland U18 player Niklas Moelders, in Austin for a year abroad. Powerful in contact and active all over the field Moelders scored two tries to lead the Longhorns to a 15-5 win over Baylor.
In the 5th-place semis, Oregon impressed with good work from Liam Weir at scrumhalf, Taishi Konoike as a flyhalf/center, and Will Sherman pretty much everywhere, the Ducks answered two tries from Wyoming’s Cole Williams to win 33-10.
Nebraska’s injury woes continued as they lost Lucas Fleming after he had opened the game with a try. Fleming was outstanding on Day One and in this game until he was hurt. His absence hurt as Millennia Atlantic played their most wide-open game of the weekend. Halfback Bruno Tavanti was a force of nature, scoring a try and setting up others, including Maximo Le Donne and Gabriel Lamboglia. The Macaws won 33-7.
On to the best game of the weekend. Western Washington came into the semifinal with St. Thomas unfazed by STU’s favorite status. Mathias Adamo opened the scoring but the game became a back-and-forth between Welton Charumbira of St. Thomas and Elijah Ashmann of WWU.
Ashmann surprised STU by coming off the wing and torching the Bobcats through the middle. He scored two and helped set up a try for Liam Herring and the Vikings led 19-7 well into the second half.
But St. Thomas worked their way back, punishing some WWU penalties, and Owen Phillips powered over. Then, with time expiring, STU turned the ball over and Charumbira raced down the sideline.
Now we came to a key aspect of this game. The first try for St. Thomas was scored in the corner, but Charumbira was able to slot the conversion from the touchline. It was a brilliant piece of skill on a windy day, and because of that kick, when Charumbira converted his own try, it was 19-19—the flyhalf misses that tough early kick, WWU wins the game.
Instead, the whistle went for full time and we had overtime.
St. Thomas kicked off, forced a turnover, and on a tap penalty move Tshepang Matubatuba tapped, drew some attention, and fed Charumbira for the try in the corner.
“I have a lot of options, and they’re all good,” Matubatuba said later. “They are 99%, but I went with the option I knew would be 100%.”
Sudden death win for St. Thomas, and heartbreak for a WWU team that had a two-score lead with only a couple of minutes to go.
In the other cup semifinal, Iowa and Iowa State battled in a tight one. Michael Johnson was very good in this game and scored early for Iowa. ISU answered with Braden Miller to make it 7-7. The defenses were ruling here and the players who normally break through—Ian Klein for ISU, Ren Heimer for Iowa—were keyed on.
Late in the game Iowa put Josh Bell as an impact sub, and the first-year player picked up at the base of the ruck, and ran down the weak side to score. Heimer converted and it was 14-7. Iowa State responded with no time left, but did not get the conversion. Iowa 14, Iowa State 12.
