In what has been a very difficult tournament to win, the USA Men's U23s took home the trophy at the 2023 RugbyTown 7s in Glendale, Colo. Sunday.
So close in 2022, when they lost to Ramblin' Jesters in the final, the U23s brought back the bulk of that squad to try to go one better.
As, since this is essentially the USA Futures team, you'd think they would, right? However, the RugbyTown 7s is full of professional or semi-professional players, and even some of the not-so-pro teams have been together for a long time. Youthful exuberance and potential are nice, but experience and unity of purpose are pretty good, too.
This time, the experience of playing together last year helped as the USA U23s went 7-0, posting two shutouts, and generally winning by comfortable margins. They were pushed hard twice, both times by NAV Sevens, and held on.
The U23s held off NAV Sevens 17-12 in the final, however, maybe it wasn't quite that close. The U23s ran out to a 17-0 lead before NAV scored twice late. This was a NAV Sevens team with some very experienced players, from the hugely popular Corey Jones to former Eagles Martin Iosefo and Madison Hughes to current Eagles like Naima Fuala'au. But USA U23s Head Coach Colton Cariaga had his side fit and ready.
The opening try came from some solid defense—2023 Rudy Scholz Award-winner Lewis Gray made a textbook tackle of Hughes, rolled away as his teammate Ryan Santos counterrucked, and then picked up the loose ball to race in untouched. Sam Walsh hit the post with the conversion attempt and it was 5-0.
Defensive effort once again produced a turnover for the U23s. NAV forced a pass and the resulting forward pass resulted in a scrum. The U23s attacked and when NAV Sevens were penalized for no tackler release, Gray tapped quickly and fed Noah Brown who passed quickly to GCU standout Tucker Trickey, and he put on a move and was in at the corner.
Walsh put the kick over from the far left side and it was 12-0.
Once again the USA U23 defense was how they made good things happen. After a restart error gave NAV a scrum at midfield, Santos released from the scrum quickly once the ball was out, swarmed over Hughes and forced a knock-on. From there an unlikely kick from Trickey had NAV scrambling. And again hard work on defense and a good counterruck produced a turnover—this time a penalty—and Orrin Bizer tapped quickly and sent it wide to Trickey who dove over.
By halftime the USA U23s were up 17-0 and defensively they never slacked off.
