This weekend are the 2025 USA Club Rugby 7s Nationals, being held in Madison, Wisconsin. The teams have been competing in their geographical regions all summer and the seeding and pools have finally been released. In this article we’ll go pool by pool and tell you who’s who and what to expect heading into Nationals.
For more in-depth information about what happened in each region throughout the season, check out our June and July recaps on the USA Club Rugby website or via social media. To see more about each team attending, we recommend you check out the individual team’s social media page.
Pool A
First up in the men’s competition we have Pool A who houses our top seed, Northern Virginia Rugby [NOVA] (1). NOVA takes over the top seed from the National Athletic Village (NAV) who three-peated the National Championship from 2022-2025. With NAV out of the competition, the Mid-Atlantic was wide open for a new top dog, and NOVA stepped up. NOVA went undefeated in the Mid-Atlantic region, sweeping all three qualifiers over incredibly strong competition. How NOVA will fare outside of their region is still a question, and they are not in an easy pool, but we expect big things from this side, possibly making a return to the National Championship for the first time since 1999.
Our second team in Pool A are the Austin Huns (8) who claimed the top seed out of the Red River after defeating the Austin Blacks twice in the finals. The Huns finished in the bottom half of the competition last year after losing to the Chicago Lions in the Bowl semifinal. However this year they are joined by former NAV standout Corey Jones, and they look much more like the Austin Huns squad who won the plate back in 2022, a force to be reckoned with. One thing is for certain, the Huns will leave no stone unturned in Madison, giving it all they’ve got.
Ranked a surprising 9th are Old Blue (9) out of New York. Old Blue are very familiar with the Club 7s space, they have two titles to their name and most recently made the final in 2022. Last year wasn’t their best, they lost out in the Bowl semifinal against WAC, but they regularly make the playoff rounds. The qualifier season went well for them, automatically qualifying from the Northeast, going toe to toe with Mystic River nearly the entire season. If Old Blue find their rhythm early, there’s no stopping them.
The last team in Pool A is last-ranked Life West (16). Life West had to qualify At-Large as Northern California doesn’t have an automatic qualification seed, but we saw a little bit of their razzle dazzle up against WAC in the Pacific Northwest. Life West attended the final PNW qualifier and tore through the competition, eliminating WAC from the semifinals and soaring over Santa Rosa in the final 42-12. Only one tournament, but it was enough to see that Life West is here to play. The last time we saw Life West at Nationals was in 2022 when they finished 8th after falling 7-5 in the Cup Quarterfinal against the Denver Barbos.
All pools are difficult, but I’m calling this early – this is our pool of death.
Pool B
Diving into Pool B we lead off with last year’s runners-up Belmont Shore (2). Belmont defeated the St. Louis Bombers 22-7 in the Cup semifinals only to fall 26-12 to NAV in the final. Now Belmont has already won the Men’s D1 XV Championship just a few months ago and they are trying to do the improbable of winning both National Championships in the same year. This demands a high level of excellence from the players, the coaches, and the management. Can Belmont add their names to the list? They started off wonderfully with a clean sweep of the Southern California qualifiers to automatically qualify for Nationals, but now they have to take down the other three teams in their pool, as well as the rest of the teams across the field in order to claim another National title.
Joining Belmont in Pool B are the Schuylkill River Exiles (7), another common name in USA Rugby National Championships. Schuylkill finished seventh over the Dallas RFC both last year and in 2023 and took home the bronze in 2022 over the Denver Barbarians. This year Schuylkill qualified At-Large after falling to NOVA in the Mid-Atlantic region; they started the season slow but began connecting the pieces as the tournaments wore on. Schuylkill can only hope they planned their peak for the right time and are coming to Nationals on a hot streak because any lost game can mean the difference between playing for the Cup or the consolation bracket.
Our third team in this pool is the Washington Athletic Club [WAC] (10) out of the Pacific Northwest. WAC finished top of the table and automatically qualified out of Seattle thanks to an early lead in the standings at their home tournament. They’ve struggled to make it out of the pool the last few years, making it to two Bowl Finals and one Shield final, but this year they are shooting higher. They struggled against Life West in the last PNW qualifier, but had already auto-qualified then so perhaps they didn’t put out their full side. Either way, we think WAC has a good chance of making it out if they can hit the competition at the right time. However, a slow start to the day could doom them to consolation playoffs for another year.
Our last team joining Pool B are the Detroit Tradesmen who qualified At-Large in the Midwest after placing third with one silver and two bronze finishes overall. They did well in the series against strong competition, but it does mean they are ranked lower than their finish last year, which was 5th. Now if they are still performing at that 5th ranked level, then I might have made a bad call with Pool A being our pool of death, however I think Detroit’s fallen off a bit. Or maybe I’m just adding fuel to the Tradesmen’s fire because I want to see them make the semis this year? I guess we’ll find out this weekend.
Pool C
Heading over to Pool C we have last year’s bronze medalists, the Denver Barbarians (3) leading the way. Denver has qualified for the semifinals the last three years, having to take on NAV the last two years. It’s no easy feat losing twice to the eventual National Champion, but with NAV out of the picture, why not the Barbos to go all the way? According to records, Denver has featured in eight 7s National Championship matches, but never won a single title (sorry Denver). They did place fifth at the Red River’s Bloodfest tournament, but that was a very young side missing some key players. They swept the rest of the Frontier qualifiers, their closest match was the Fountain City 7s final when they defeated the KC Blues 19-12. There are some dark horses in this pool, but I think Denver will soar onward as they have so many times before.
Joining the Barbos are the second-ranked team from the Midwest, the Chicago Lions (6). Chicago followed up their third place finish in the opening Midwest Series stop with two appearances in the final against the Bombers. The valiant efforts they put in, along with the Midwest’s historical success at Nationals made them a no-brainer for an At-Large bid. The Lions were absent last year, and finished 10th the year before, so we haven’t seen them perform at this level for a while, but they are an incredibly successful club with solid coaching, so I think this will be a good year for the Lions.
Next up are the men from Massachusetts, Mystic River (11). Mystic River finished second overall in the Northeast, behind Old Blue, and qualified At-Large. Mystic defeated Old Blue in the third qualifier of the season after losing the first two finals by only one or two scores. Mystic takes Old Blue’s final standing from last year of 11th, after losing out in the Shield semifinal in 2023, their last appearance. The only way for Mystic to go is up, and they’ve got a solid squad to do it with. Pool play will tell us a lot about what this team is capable of and how they fare against competition from all over the States.
Last but certainly not least in Pool C is Eagle Rock (14). Now I have to own up for my own embarrassment here because I had not heard of Eagle Rock before recapping this 7s season. As the fourth-oldest club in the US (founded in 1937) this is poor from me. However, they haven’t been around the Nationals 7s scene recently, so I was surprised when they started playing hard ball against Belmont in the qualifiers. They appropriately qualified At-Large from SoCal as the second-place team and took the final standing from last year of Santa Monica who lost to Life in the Shield Final. I think Eagle Rock is underranked, they are going to surprise some teams out there and have a solid shot of making it to the Cup rounds.
Pool D
Our fourth and final pool is headlined by the Midwest Champions, the St. Louis Bombers (4). St Louis finished fourth last year and second in 2023, losing by a conversion in the final against NAV. They also won the 2024 Men’s D1 XV National Championship and are a strong well-rounded program. Fueled by the pipeline of athletes coming from Lindenwood University, they added former NAV player Tim Stanfill to the roster and just hit that next level. Following a clean sweep of the Midwest, the Bombers are back and ready to rumble, I would not want to be standing in their way.
Our second team in Pool B are our highest-ranked At-Large team, the Beltway Elite (5). Beltway finished second in the Mid-Atlantic behind NOVA, so they take NOVA’s place from last year. Their own highest ranking was 6th in 2022 and 9th in 2023, having not attended last year. Beltway are a gritty side out of the Washington DC area and they’ve been through the wringer before. Having to compete with NAV for years in order to qualify for Nationals can wear on a team, but instead Beltway wears it with pride. I think Beltway has a great shot of making it out of pool play, but that’s when the going gets tough, there’s a lot of big fish in a small pond. Will Beltway survive?
Our second to last team are our underdog story of the season, the Dallas Harlequins (12). The Quins would have finished fourth in the Red River, had the Austin Blacks and the Dallas RFC submitted ineligible rosters in the final tournament and put themselves out of contention. This launched the Quins into second and gave them the bid to Nationals, thanks to the Huns and the Reds’ finish last year. Now don’t think you can walk all over the Quins just because they would have been fourth in Texas. This team has some strike weapons including Texas native and MLR player Jason Tidwell. The Harlequins are certainly a team we can all get behind, especially with the Cinderella story that brought them here.
Last up are the Southern champions, Life University (13). And let’s be clear, they’re not exactly the Life University collegiate team, they’re a collection of Atlanta-based players who typically did play for Life U at one point. Life swept the South qualifiers, dispatching Atlanta Old White and winning all three tournaments to automatically qualify. They are the lone men’s South representative since the fall of the Tennessee Elite. Life won the Shield last year after going 0-3 on the opening day. It’s going to be an uphill battle for the Georgia-based side, but you never know. They are in a pool with two At-Large bids, who are always a bit of wild cards. First step in beating last year’s record – a pool win.
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