Taking a break from 15s over the past weekend, Life University jumped right into 7s and had no trouble in the Women's U23 bracket in the Tropical 7s.

Life entered two teams, Life Black and Life Green, and while sometimes splitting your squad means you end up with two teams that are just OK, or you end up with one squad much stronger than the other, this wasn't the case in Orlando. Life Green did superbly, winning four games, including shutouts of the Rogue Samurai and Tallahassee. They did lose two games, but both of those were against Life Black, which ran the table in pool play and then beat Life Green 31-5 in the championship match.

It was a dominant performance. Against non-Life teams, Green and Black were, combined, 8-0, with 316 points scored (just under 40 per game) and 12 points scored against. Green allowed a try by Celtic Barbarians and a try by Clemson; Black allowed only 12 points all weekend, and they were all scored by Life Green. No one else was able to cross Life Black's tryline as they recorded wins of 50-0, 45-0, 38-0, and 66-0.

Four of the Life Black players, Sophie Pyrz, Autumn LoCicero, Emerson Allen, and Alex Wantlin, were together through the fall at the ARPTC residency. ARPTC About To Kick Off Fall Residency.

"They had already developed quite a bit of chemistry and it was great to see how that played out," said Life Head Coach Rosalind Chou. Meanwhile, Alex Wantlin and Kate Buzby had played on Atlantis together and had played with Su Adegoke on the USA U18 team. So there were elements of cohesion there already. And they needed it.

"It has been two years since we've played 7s so it was also Kayla Pemasa's first chance to play 7s for us when she was primarily a 7s player for Kahului before coming to Life," added Chou. "Alex was the only freshman on Team Black."

With veterans Tatum Johnson, Sydnee Cervinski, Adrionna Duncan, Makayla Lowe, Malery Billingy helping her along, she did well and the entire squad was pretty much untouchable.

But the team that did touch them was Life Green, which would have won the tournament if Black had decided to hit the beach instead. Life Green included Coco Mendoza-Silva, who represented Mexico in the 2016 7s Rugby World Cup, and was complemented by Chyenne Samuels, Nina Wilson, and Sylina Flowers. Ten of 12 had never played 7s for Life University before.

"It was so great to see how competitive they were and were the only team on the weekend to score against Team Black," said Chou. "I know this year was limited in the number of teams, both domestic and international, who could attend. So, we do miss the robustness of competition from year's past, but were so happy to take part in the tournament and it was just what we needed as a squad, a weekend of sunshine, fun, and rugby."

And winning.