The American Rugby 7s U19 Challenge Cup will be held this weekend at Redondo Union HS in Redondo Beach, Calif.

Using an Olympics format, the tournament is run by Tommy Smith and will see top HS players playing 7s at the Sea Hawk Bowl.

Games begin at 9am.

Redondo HS hosted a U19 tournament July 7 which was extremely successful. 

Redondo won that tournament with a 4-0 record.

Teams from Santa Clarita rugby club, Santa Monica rugby club and Palos Verdes rugby clubs competed with the Redondo Seahawks in a round-robin format.

The 40 players that participated all improved as the day progressed and good sportsmanship exhibited was a tribute to the control and manner the games were handled by the referee crew led by Bill Caulfield. Having a full crew to ref and run touch benefited the players a great deal. Experienced rugby Trainer Dai Watanabe did a great job and as always was a pleasure to work with.

Santa Clarita RC, led by Coach Greg and Coach Ed were represented well with a full complement of club members including 4 talented players only 16 years old.  Santa Clarita scored the biggest upset of the day with an opening game 19-7 victory over a very good Santa Monica side.

Santa Monica RC led by scrumhalf Danny Thomas played inspired, hard hitting and aggressive rugby and was a bit limited in only having 7 players throughout the day.

Palos Verdes rugby club coached by Jeremy Wilkinson played very good 7’s all day long and their play did not reflect the 3 weeks that they have been playing 7’s. This club has a lot of potential future stars.

Hunter Bradshaw led all scorers with 29 points, from five tries and two conversions.