Teams out West were busy playing 7s over the weekend with the Denver Barbarians, SFGG, and OMBAC coming away with wins.
Denver 7s
The Denver Barbarians have a leg up on the rest of the competition in the Midwest thanks to their win at the Denver 7s. With only three tournaments to decide who goes to the National Club 7s the Barbarians will now have a bit of a buffer heading into the final two tournaments. Right behind them, and the team they beat in the finals, are the Kansas City Blues.
Denver 7s tournament director Howard Kent submitted the following recap of the final: "In the first half the Barbarians completed dominated the restarts; in particular kick offs and kept the Blues on the back foot for the bulk of the half scoring 4 converted tries and botching another while KC had managed one unconverted try. 28 to 5 Barbos at halftime. The second half started well for the Barbos with a long run into KC territory but an ill advised pass was collected by KC and worked quickly for a converted try. Shorty after the ensuing kickoff the Barbos had a man yellow carded. KC had to work hard but scored another converted try and had life with the score now 28-19 Denver with 5 minutes remaining. The Barbos dominated possession and tackled excellently scoring 2 more unconverted tries to make the final score Denver Barbarians A 38, Kansas City Blues A 19"
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To reach the final the Barbarians first went unbeaten through pool play and then beat the Omaha Goats 34-0 in the semi-finals. Getting through pool play unbeaten meant beating the Glendale Raptors, and a combined New Mexico/Colorado side the Black Dragons. The Blues reached the final by also going 3-0 in their pool with wins over the Goats, the Air Force Selects, and the Denver Barbarians B.
Arguably the biggest surprise of the day came in the 3rd/4th place match where the Goats beat the Raptors 28-19. According to Kent, "Omaha showed plenty of toughness combined with improved skill and where in the thick of it with the 3 well known top seeds in the Barbos, KC & Glendale."
NorCal
The first NorCal qualifier took place over the weekend with teams playing a round-robin format. SFGG was the only team to finish the day with four wins as they now lead the competition. Life West are the next closest team in the standings after they also went unbeaten. However, their only non-win of the day came against Olympic Club when O-Club came back from a 19-0 deficit to tie the match. O-Club sit behind the Sacramento Capitals to round out the top four. The tournament will kick back up on July 11th with a stop at Treasure Island. The top four teams after that tournament will head to Tacoma for the Pacific Northern playoffs.
Flagstaff 7s
The SoCal series shifted to Arizona last weekend with the Flagstaff 7s. Once again Belmont Shore looked strong but in the end were stopped by and OMBAC side that also looked very good. OMBAC, who finished fourth last weekend at their own tournament played very well over the weekend with Matt Long, Dustin Bates (who had seven tries in five matches), Garrett Jones (two tries in the final), and Paul Derham all playing well. They beat Belmont Shore 33-31 in the final. OMBAC went up 33-14 with a few minutes to go before Belmont Shore scored three times but weren't able to hit the conversions.
OMBAC went 3-0 in pool play with wins over Arizona B, Belmont Shore, and Pasadena. Belmont were without Mike Te'o but at the same time OMBAC were without Chris Turori and Zach Pangelinan. In the semi-finals Santa Monica beat OMBAC 40-10. Belmont Shore beat the Arizona Academy in the other semi-final. Arizona then beat Santa Monica in the 3rd/4th place match.
Despite the loss in the final Belmont Shore still have the lead in the standings followed by OMBAC and then Arizona and Santa Monica. (Note: the strangest thing that happened at the tournament, possibly all summer, was when Santa Monica found a dead body in their hotel room when they arrived.)