Club 7s Nationals – Women’s Pool Preview 2025

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.

Starting in Pool A, we’ve got the defending National Champions Scion (1), as the top seed in the pool. Which makes sense. Scion finished top in the Mid-Atlantic this season, taking home two of four (really three because one was rained out) qualifier championships. They also didn’t participate in the last qualifier, so they’ve still got a perfect record. Their two finals were won 42-0 over Phoenixville and 42-19 over NOVA. I’m not here to make predictions but it appears Scion is going to be the team to beat. 

Next up are the Dallas Harlequins (8) who finished first in the Red River Conference. They placed 8th last year, defeating NOVA and Boston in pool play before a tough day 2. Their run through the Red River was pretty smooth this year, they got top qualifier points at the first two stops despite losing to Faith Rugby in the Bloodfest final, however they did drop the final qualifier to HEB. If they can make it out of pool play, they are guaranteed to not see Scion in the quarters, a tempting offer for any team.

Dallas and Scion are joined by Boston (9), the Northeast Champions. Boston had a relatively light schedule compared to some of the other regions, and are the only Northeast women’s team to make the journey to Nationals. Boston finished 9th last year, winning all three of their games on day 2 to claim the Bowl. This included a spicy 7-0 win over HEB and their eventual 22-7 win over Phoenix in the final. As mentioned above, they were in a pool last year with the Harlequins, who bested them by a single conversion kick. This year, Boston will need to take down Dallas in order to make it out of pool play and improve on last year’s record. 

Our final team in Pool A are the Atlanta 2.0 Selects (16). Atlanta finished second in the South region, behind Phoenix. Their last trip to Nationals in 2023 saw them finishing 14th, losing the Shield Final to the Oregon Sharks after their lone win over the Dallas RFC earlier that day. Then they missed the boat to the 2024 Nationals as Orlando qualified second behind Phoenix, but that’s all in the past. This Atlanta side is ready for action and ready to make a name for themselves. Don’t count them out.

Moving onto Pool B, we’ve got the Midwest champions Chicago North Shore (2) leading this one. North Shore takes the seed of the Chicago Lions who finished second last year and second this year in the Midwest qualification. North Shore won both of the Midwest’s qualifiers, with the final not being played in the third due to thunderstorms. They were both tight games, the first tied at full time and going into sudden death and the second ending 26-19. North Shore is looking to improve on a couple of fourth-place finishes from years past and take home some hardware this year. As always, the first step is making it out of pool play, which won’t be easy.

Joining Chicago are the Oregon Sharks (7) who technically qualified At-Large despite tying the Pacific Northwest champions, Washington Athletic Club. WAC and the Sharks tied on table points but WAC took the head to head tiebreaker, which had them qualify automatically while the Sharks took the At-Large. This means the Sharks are ranked where they left off last year, in seventh. WAC finished third last year, so to see the tight scorelines between these two teams is promising, we think that Oregon will perform better than expected after being ranked 7th. 

Third up are Phoenix (10) from Florida, representing the South region. Phoenix lost the Bowl final last year 22-7 against Boston after going 1-2 in pool play and 2-0 to kick off day 2 of matches. Phoenix took the top points from both qualifiers despite losing the second final to Faith Rugby (not Nationals-seeking). As mentioned above, this is going to be a tough pool to get out of, but this isn’t Phoenix’s first rodeo. They won the Plate in 2023 and know what it takes to finish at the top. 

Last up in this pool are Life West (15), qualifying At-Large as NorCal didn’t have an automatic qualifying seed. Life West missed out last year, but has a long record of success at Nationals. They were runners up in 2021 and placed fifth in 2022. They didn’t attend in ‘23 or ‘24 but their women’s XV program had continued success throughout those years, so they were clearly still active and doing something right. Life West attended the final Pacific Northwest qualifier, narrowly falling 19-17 to WAC in the semifinals before taking third. I imagine that Life West will finish high above their entry ranking of 15th, having a real shot at the playoff rounds. 

Pool B takes my title of pool of death this year, it’s going to be a dogfight to get out.

Next up is Pool C, headed by last year’s bronze medalists, the Washington Athletic Club [WAC] (3). WAC automatically qualified out of the Pacific Northwest, defeating the Oregon Sharks in the head to head tiebreaker after getting the same qualification points. WAC has won hardware the last three years, losing to Scion in the 2022 Championship Match and taking the bronze in ‘23 and ‘24 over Chicago North Shore both years. It wasn’t easy in the PNW, but we think that’s probably a testament to the Oregon Sharks being better than expected as opposed to WAC dropping down, celebrating the improvement of top level competition in that region. Expect big things again this year from WAC.

Joining WAC are the Colorado Grey Wolves (6) who qualified from the Frontier region. Colorado are an interesting one, obviously their success from the XVs game is evident, but we haven’t seen them at a 7s Nationals since 2022 when they played under the Rocky Mountain Magic banner. They played at Fountain City 7s in July, losing once in pool play before smoking the competition, including a resounding 34-0 win over the KC Patriots in the final. Honestly, not sure how the Grey Wolves are going to play out in this competition, particularly when you look at how difficult of a pool they are in. 

The third team in Pool C are the Berkeley All Blues (11). Berkeley is another At-Large seed coming from the NorCal region. They didn’t attend ‘23 or ‘24, largely due to clashes with the WPL (Women’s Premier League) calendar. They last won the Shield Final in 2022, a long drop from their second place finish back in 2019. However Berkeley is back and we’re excited to see what they bring back to the Nationals stage. Similar to Life West, they played in the third Pacific Northwest qualifier, defeating WAC in pool play and making it to the final. The rematch between these two teams here at Nationals is going to be a thrilling one.

Last but certainly not least in this pool are the women from the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia (14). The Philly 7s side, affectionately nicknamed the “Tequila”, battled it out in a very difficult Mid-Atlantic region alongside Phoenixville and Scion, both also attending Nationals this year. They had a number of top three finishes, and went 5-0 in the final qualifier (where Scion did not attend). One of the benefits to being in a region with Scion is that they’ve taken on the best of the best before and know what it will take to beat them. While other teams may have had their sheltered runs to the big stage, Philly knows the landscape and is coming in hot.

Rounding out our women’s competition are the final four teams in Pool D, led by last year’s runners up, the Chicago Lions (4). The Lions won the whole thing in 2023 over Camp Pendleton, then fell short last year against Scion. Qualification wasn’t as easy as they hoped this year, as they split their sides evenly to compete. Chicago North Shore saw the chink in the armor, and swept up the top seed, leaving the Lions to take over their old ranking (which at 4th is still pretty good..). If anyone knows what it takes to get back to a final, it’s Chicago. We don’t think the second place finish in the Midwest nor the fourth place seed will phase them, it’s all business once the whistle goes.

Ranked one below the Lions are the equally formidable San Diego Surfers (5), who automatically qualified out of SoCal. San Diego and Scion are the only 4-time 7s National Champions on the women’s side, with San Diego taking the titles in 2012, 2014, 2018, and 2019. San Diego won the Plate last year after losing to the Chicago Lions 29-5 in the quarterfinals. No love lost there, that’s going to be a fun rematch at the end of Day 1. Expect San Diego to be quick and ruthless on the pitch. They’ve got hardware in their sights this year.

The third team in Pool D are HEB (12), an At-Large bid from the Red River. HEB first debuted on the Nationals scene in 2023 where they placed 7th after storming through the Texas qualification pathway. They stumbled a bit last year finishing 12th, and were a bit slow on the start out of Texas this year, but their last qualifier saw them taking the title over the automatically qualified Dallas Harlequins. If they keep their engine rolling through Nationals, they will be a tough team to beat, but if they start slow, any one of these Pool D competitors will get the jump on them. 

Our last team of the competition are Phoenixville White Horse (13) out of the Mid-Atlantic. Phoenixville have been a hot name on the D2 XV scene, coming in second in both 2024 and 2025. Last year Phoenixville finished 14th at Club 7s, losing to NOVA 17-14 in the Shield final. Alongside Philadelphia, Phoenixville have been battling it out with Scion all year in the qualifiers, which explains their record. However, don’t take that for granted, Phoenixville is far more impressive than they appear on paper, and they won’t hold back. This may be a tougher pool than they bargained for, but Phoenixville is here to play.