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Seattle Wins City Elite 7s

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Seattle Wins City Elite 7s

Houston, Texas – The United States will once again be represented by both an east coast and west coast team at Premiership Rugby’s World Club Sevens this year after Seattle defeated San Diego in the inaugural Elite City Sevens Final Saturday.

Houston Sports Park hosted the first-ever domestic club sevens competition featuring 144 U.S. Passport holders, who showed Men’s Eagles Sevens Head Coach Matt Hawkins and USA Rugby National Development Director for the Men’s Eagles Sevens Alex Magleby why they deserved a chance to play for an Olympic medal.

Seattle and San Diego each finished day one with 2-0 records, including a shutout for each team. Washington, D.C., shut out Chicago, 24-0, in the play-in round to open Saturday’s matches, but fell short of upsetting first-seeded San Diego.

Boston earned a tough, 26-12, win against Houston in the play-in round, but could not continue its run against eventual champion Seattle with a 43-0 loss.

San Diego defeated Philadelphia, 22-14, and Seattle escaped a close match against Denver, 17-12, to set up an all-west coast Final. Seattle took the first lead of the match before San Diego scored a converted try to bring the score to 7-5 at the half.

Seattle scored another try to regain the lead, but missed the conversion once again. San Diego’s second converted try overtook Seattle before the team coached by Waisale Serevi put the match to bed with a try from capped Eagle Mike Palefau to take a 17-14 lead. One last try sealed the win and the trip to Twickenham Stadium in England this August.

Denver finished third at Elite City Sevens with a 4-1 record and 12-10 win against Philadelphia in the Third-Place Match.

Seattle’s Mike Palefau was named Elite City Sevens Most Valuable Player, while the winning side had two First-Team All-Tournament Team selections. See the full tournament results here.

Elite City Sevens All-Tournament Team | First-Team
Nate Augspurger (Boston)
Tyler Barberi (Philadelphia)
John Cullen (Seattle)
Maximo de Achaval (Denver)
Cameron Freeman (San Diego)
Kevin Garbis (Chicago)
Jack Halalilo (San Francisco)
Matt Hughston (Washington, D.C.)
Chris Mattina (Philadelphia)
Kevin Swiryn (Seattle)
Mikey Te'o (San Diego)
Ke'von Williams (Denver)

Elite City Sevens All-Tournament Team | Second-Team
Perry Baker (Ohio)
Patrick Blair (San Diego)
Dylan Carrion (Dallas)
Logan Collins (Denver)
Chance Doyle (Houston)
Marcus Henderson (Boston)
Will Holder (San Diego)
Tonata Lauti (Salt Lake City)
Dominic Mauer (Ohio)
Ben Pinkelman (Denver)
Joe Reavey (San Francisco)
Tim Stanfill (Seattle)

Elite City Sevens | Final Standings
1. Seattle
2. San Diego
3. Denver
4. Philadelphia
5. Boston
6. Salt Lake City
7. Washington, D.C.
8. Dallas
9. San Francisco
10. Chicago
11. Ohio
12. Houston