USA Rugby Takes Bronze at AL Sports Festival
[Release from Coach Darwin]
The tournament was between mixed competition of 5 men’s teams and 5 collegiate teams. It was hosted at Spanish Park High School in Hoover AL. The Jaguars were in pool A with B’ham 1 (Gold), Montgomery, & UNA. Getting to a medal meant placing 1st or 2nd in our pool. We easily did that, and in the end only lost to the Gold and Silver medal winners.
USA 24 v Montgomery 0 – “Great opening match. Our boys came out strong, jumped on the much bigger men’s team and never let up. A real confidence builder.”
USA 7 v B’ham One 14 – “Birmingham 1 had the home field advantage, they are a large physical men’s team and I thought we looked sharp at times against them. They were definitely the better tea at the end of the day.”
USA 10 v UNA 0 – “The University of North Alabama let us get back into our rhythm, in the heat of the day. Beating them meant extending into a medal round and it helped refuel the Jaguars.”
Semi Final #1
USA 5 v Ship 24 – “Battleship of Mobile was a somewhat familiar foe and we knew it was going to be a tough match-up. We prepared for them like any other club but the boys had to play their entire bench to finish the match.”
Bronze Medal Game
USA 12 v Bama 0 – “Bronze medal match, and the Jaguars weren’t coming away empty handed. The young jags had played out of their skin all day and got some sweet payback on a team the bested them late last Spring.”