Mystic River came away champions of the Showdown at the Shore in Monmouth, NJ.

The Showdown is a huge tournament covering six brackets, and celebrates the depth of the game in New Jersey.

Watch the USA Rugby Club 7s Nationals LIVE on FloRugby, August 10-11. 

Hosts Monmouth took the Men’s Open championship, with Long Island coming in 2nd.

New York won the Women’s Open, and in fact took 2nd, while Brooklyn won the Men’s Social.

New York Rugby Club also took the HS Boys and HS Girls brackets.

But this was a Northeast qualifier for men’s sevens, and that’s where the chase for a national title was underway.

Both Old Blue and Mystic entered two teams, but the 2nd teams didn’t really factor in the standings. Old Blue 1 beat Mystic 2 in the opening round quite easily—40-0— and NYAC beat Old Blue 2 22-7. Mystic’s 1st team was fairly solid in a 31-7 win over Fairfield.

In the second round of games, Fairfield beat Mystic 2, Old Blue 1 beat Old Blue 2, and Mystic beat NYAC 40-10. Old Blue met its first major challenge in Round 3, and escaped Fairfield 26-24. With Mystic rolling now 49-0 over Old Blue 2, while MYAC started to falter, losing 22-5 to Mystic’s 2nd team.

Injuries were probably the reason for NYAC’s collapse, as they were unable to play the next game, against Old Blue 1. Mystic took a forfeit, too, over Mystic 2, while Fairfield beat Old Blue 2 by the score of 26-5.

So that set up the two undefeated teams for the final game, and Mystic River won 26-17 in another tight one between these two teams.

Fairfield took 3rd, while Old Blue 2 beat Mystic 2 17-0 to take 5th.

The win puts Mystic in a strong position in the Northeast region. The series now hits its climax this coming weekend in Saratoga, NY at the Saratoga Sevens.