Day One of the CRAA Men's 7s is in the books with Saint Mary's and Life looking very good in the D1A bracket, and the Ducks of Oregon and the Hawkeyes of Iowa leading the way among the D1AA teams.
The D1A bracket of six teams is a straight round-robin, with the top two playing for the championship.
Here are the scores from Day One:
Life 50 McKendree 5
Lindenwood 17 Davenport 17
Saint Mary's 39 Air Force 0
Life 45 Lindenwood 7
Saint Mary's 31 Davenport 0
McKendree 20 Air Force 7
Life 40 Davenport 5
Lindenwood 26 Air Force 24
Saint Mary's 48 McKendree 12
Saint Mary's was explosive and dynamic and it showed in their scorelines. Life was direct and James Rose was a huge scoring presence for them.
Both ended the day 3-0, with Life giving up 17 points and Saint Mary's 12 (including two shutouts).
A fairly young Lindenwood side battled to a 1-1-1 record, and McKendree pulled off a nice win over an Air Force team that was competitive (26-24 vs Lindenwood), but ultimately winless.
On Sunday, Saint Mary's plays Life and Lindenwood, while Life also plays Air Force. It's likely that those two will be in the final and face each other twice on the day.
The battle, really, is for 3rd and 4th to see who can win the 3rd-4th match. Everyone is in with a shot there. Davenport, winless (but with a tie) on Saturday, has a shot with McKendree and Air Force, to vault into that game.
