In what has become an annual tradition Schuylkill River had another big weekend at the Collegiate Rugby Championship (https://www.usasevenscrc.com) in Chester PA last weekend. Philadelphia rugby’s flagship 7s team had 14 active players compete in the collegiate event in addition to our U19 side’s participation in the high school rugby championship.

In the NSCRO Division Loyola took third place in the country in large part thanks to Danny Gianascoli and Jack Ramirez and the Freedom Cup featured Drexel with 2017 All-American Kyle Kent and Louis Baeza. What makes these two teams notable is the fact that Gianascoli will now be joining his brother Matt as a member of Skill Rugby while Kent’s brother Karl joined the family by playing for our U19 side.

Additional Freedom Cup participants included Villanova with PJ Maher, West Chester with Mike Salloum and Rowan with Armani Mendez. All three of these guys are talented young rugby players and it’s great to have an event like this in our background to enable them to continue developing their skills.
In the Champions Division Kutztown enjoyed a top 4 finish with Sam Devine and Daquan Perry on the roster, St. Joe’s featured a trio of Skill Rugby players with Mikey Hoffman, Nick Ballas, and Finn Tuite, Temple had Adam Shapiro on their team, and Boston College featured Riley Curtin.

We look forward to developing even more talent in the summer of 2019 and continuing to work on our grass roots Philadelphia rugby initiatives to keep providing opportunities for local talent to shine in this event.