TOA won the Boys Elite U18s at Tropical 7s, beating Rebel Rugby Academy 26-10 in the final.
The key, said Coach Greg Turpen, was cohesion.
"The family and administrative unity spread into our team and extended well beyond the field," said Tupren. "Behind the scenes, our support team, families, and coach handled things seamlessly. It was pretty cool."
Things were pretty cool on the field, too, as TOA shook off an early loss to the Charlotte Cardinals to beat EIRA, Upright, NXT GEN, and a very tough Gorillas side to make the final.
"Our pool play was gritty," said Turpen. "We won at or near full time in the two head-to-head matchups we needed to win to get the pool to head tie breaker criteria. Both of those wins came from reserve players impacting things with slightly fresher legs. But our overall match play success wasn’t really powered by individual stardom. We had two or three guys raise up in each game and over the five matches all 12 had done it."
As a result, picking a tournament MVP out of this lot was tough. Each player was outstanding, especially on defense, and with TOA having such quality in their depth, they could start a different combination almost every match, which they did.
Turpen saw all of this as the team assembled.
"They were eager to do the unseen work that wins matches," he said. And when the matches began, "they were mature, accepted errors and tough calls, and got better every half. All of that made sense because most of our team has been together since U14 seasons and the added members seemed like they had been. I think that grassroots, local-regional connection was a difference-maker."
