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Gonzaga Tournament Provides Plenty of Challenges

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Gonzaga Tournament Provides Plenty of Challenges

St. Andrews during halftime.

Not all of the games scheduled for Day One at the Gonzaga Tournament were played as the DC area was hit with torrential rain and thunder and lightning late in the afternoon.

But a large chunk of the Premier pool games were indeed played and organizers garnered sufficient information from those games to work up a good Sunday schedule.

Teams were slated to play two 40-minute games on Saturday and the same on Sunday. Not every team got to play its two pool matches, but as luck would have it, all the top seeded teams did get two matches in, and they all went 2-0, making the cup bracket much easier to put together.

St. Andrew's College out of South Africa surprised no one with their 69-0 dismantling of a fairly young Gonzaga White team. But they had to work a little hard for their tries against Vienna, finally winning 26-5. Vienna's bend-don't-break defense, which usually results in a turnover in their 22 that gets reversed into a long-range try, was tested by a very precised and disciplined St. Andrew's team.

Charlotte Cardinals were skilled and physically powerful and shut our AYR and also Fort Hunt to go 2-0 in impressive fashion.

Shawnigan Lake from British Columbia in Canada did well to get by the Raleigh Redhawks 21-12, but had all they could handle with Aspetuck. Wide enough to go for points when the penalties arose, Shawnigan edged the Connecticut team 11-10.

That result made the seeding easier as a loss by Shawnigan would have made them 1-1, and would have left Aspetuck with only the one result.

Hosts Gonzaga ran their Purple side against New Orleans Jesuit and Staples. NOLA Jesuit played hard and did get a try in the first half. But a physical and accurate Gonzaga team pulled away 35-10. Against Staples it was all Gonzaga 48-0.

So the top four are St. Andrew's, Charlotte Cardinals, Shawnigan Lake, and Gonzaga Purple, with the first two playing each other and the last two listed playing each other in the semis. 

The remaining teams were seeded based on points difference, and all the teams agreed to this plan, understanding that the purpose of the tournament, especially playing for the Plate and the Bowl, is to get challenging games.

So in the Plate Semifinals Aspetuck plays Fort Hunt and Vienna plays New Orleans Jesuit. In the Bowl Semifinals AYR takes on Gonzaga White while Staples plays Raleigh.