The USA Rugby South women's team won the Rugby Americas North women's 10s Friday.

The 10-a-side tournament featured USA South, Trinidad & Tobago, Bahamas, and Jamaica. The South team was made up mostly of players from Life University, with a couple of players from other colleges, and was coached by Life University Women's Head Coach Rosalind Chou.

It was a very competitive tournament, with the Panthers beating T&T 17-10 in their opener, and Jamaica 14-12. Led by Niclole Strasko, the South hammered Bahamas 34-0 to make the final.

In the final, the South beat Trinidad & Tobago 31-22 to finish it all off. Jamaica beat Bahamas 27-0 for 3rd.

Trinidad really pushed the South in the final and in fact took the lead early through Dalia Jordan-Brown. T&T finished 3rd in the Olympic qualifiers in 2015 and the team is very athletic. The South replied immediately with a smart quick tap and pass by Cynthia Kelly to Zoe Sanchez, who went 55 meters for the try. T&T replied with another try when Victoria Carlisle just split the defense and went in under the sticks. 

But once more the South replied - Strasko hauled in a leading pass that bounced off her fingertips and stayed in possession as the Life star accelerated into the ball. Sanchez set that up with an elusive run. The South then started the second half with a brutal attack, forcing a turnover, and punching it straight ahead and scoring on a pick-and-go. Trinidad would not go away, and scored their third try - the South still oed 21-15 thanks to the fact that Kelly was dependable on the kicks, and Trinidad was not.

With the score 21-15 T&T got a yellow card for a dangerous tackle, and the South made it count almost immediately - exposing T&T outside when Kimberly Semiglia looped around, got a pass off the face, controlled it, and scored in the corner.

And yet again Trinidad replied - despite being down a player they were able to hurt the South on the outside with Althea Glasgow skirting around the edge and going 85 meters to score under the posts. They kicked the conversion to make it 26-22 for the South with less than a minute to go.

The South needed to run out the clock, and they did it in style, sending it wide to Strasko who took off down the sideline, fended off a tackler, and scored in the corner to make it 31-22.

But it was a very close-run thing, and had Trinidad & Tobago had been able to get a couple of early conversions, it might have been a different story.

All Women's 10s scores at Rugby SuperWeek:

USA South 17 Trinidad & Tobago 10

Bahamas 20 Jamaica 17

USA South 14 Jamaica 12

Trinidad & Tobago 27 Bahamas 12

Trinidad & Tobago 24 Jamaica 7

USA South 34 Bahamas 0

3rd-4th Jamaica 27 Bahamas 0

Final: USA South 31 Trinidad & Tobago 22

Embedded video of the second day of competition. If you don't see the embedded video, please refresh the page.