With 48 matches in the books, only four teams remain in the hunt for the $10,000 cash prize after Day 2 of the 2019 RugbyTown Sevens.
Marlborough Compeed 7s, Tiger Rugby, NOLA Gold 7s and the Ramblin’ Jesters all secured their place in the quarterfinal on Saturday evening. Marlborough Compeed 7s was the only two seed to escape the quarterfinals. In what was one of the most exciting matches of the day, Marlborough used an extra minute of game time to drive the distance of the field to defeat Army, the powerhouse of Pool A, 17-15. Marlborough will face Tiger Rugby, who defeated Barbados JetBlue 48-0 in their quarterfinal match.
Army went into the first Cup quarterfinal match red hot. Having scored at least 34 points in all their matches in pool play and picking up a 33-5 victory over Air Force that won them their seventh-straight U.S. Military Championship, Army came within one stop of bouncing Marlborough down into the Plate bracket. They scored 165 points while only conceding 17 points to go 4-0 in Pool A.
Despite falling to the Collegiate All-Americans on Saturday afternoon, which turned out to be their first true loss of the tournament as their loss against Lomaiviti was voided due to an ineligible player, the Gold earned a berth in the Cup semifinal by picking up a 34-0 win over Air Force. The Gold will face their toughest test of the tournament on Sunday when they take on the Ramblin’ Jesters, who defeated Celtic Barbarians 33-10 in their quarterfinal match. Counting the 10 points the Barbarians scored, the Jesters have only conceded 15 points through five matches.
To complement the stellar defense that they’ve played over the course of two days, the Jesters have also scored a tournament-high 222 points for a whopping point differential of 207. On top of all that, the Jesters lead the tournament with tries scored during pool play with 33. The next closest team was Army, who finished with 27 tries in pool play.
Between the eight quarterfinal matches that took place on Saturday evening, five of them ended in shutouts. Lomaiviti, Denver 7s Selects and CCIG Life West all picked up shutouts in their quarterfinal matches to advance to the Bowl semifinals.
Championship Sunday will bring rugby fans 12 more matches to scratch their itch. Come catch all the action live by purchasing your tickets here or streaming the matches on rugbytown7s.com.
