The Frontier Club 7s Committee made a surprise decision Monday, awarding the lone Frontier Region seed to Women's Club 7s Nationals to the Rocky Mountain Magic.

The decision had to be made because the second of the Frontier's two qualifier tournaments, the Heartland 7s in Kansas City, was halted due to lightning. As a result, the series was never completed. While the men's series had one more tournament to play, the Denver 7s, and that allowed the leading teams to sort themselves out.

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But for the women, there was no opportunity to play anymore. In the first tournament of the season, the Kansas City Jazz defeated the Rocky Mountain Magic in the final to earn six standings points, while the Magic took home four by virtue of finishing second.

Neither team lost games in the Heartland 7s two weeks later, but the tournament was cut short with pool play incomplete.

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So, faced with a single tournament winner, Kansas City, the committee chose . . . someone else. The decision, on the face of it, seems to go against logic, but there is a logic to it.

As reported by KJ Abel Ruch, who oversaw the Frontier Committee decision, it was about looking at the totality of results.

The Committee took all of the qualifier games and essentially made a standings out of them. The result was that the Jazz finished the summer 6-1, and Rocky Mountain 5-1 — essentially the same record which difference only because Kansas City was able to get in an extra game before lightning struck. 

But when it came down to points differential, the Magic had the edge.

Rocky Mountain beat St. Louis Sabres, Black Ice, Magicians, and She Wolves by a combined 139-19 (+120), while Kansas City beat those same teams by a combined 107-17 (+90). And when you factor in head-to-head, you see that while the teams split their games, Kansas City's victory (in the Rocky Mountain 7s final) was 26-21, while Rocky Mountain's earlier win was 31-5. 

Number Don't Lie

Overall, while KC won the only completed tournament, Rocky Mountain's head-to-head and common opponent point differential was 191-50, while Kansas City's was 138-69, 72 points better.

So that's why the decision was made, and the only team to actually win a tournament is staying home.

For their part, the Jazz has handled the news with equanimity.

"It sucks but lesson learned," said coach Maeli Fuimoano, referring to the need to play well in every game. "It was awesome to win the qualifier in their backyard. We'll be rooting them on hopefully they do well enough to shed some light on our union to get two bids next year."

And one more note about this: If anyone is thinking that USA Rugby is based in Colorado, and made a hometown decision for the Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Magic, that's not the case. Heading up the Committee was Abel Ruch, who is based in Kansas.