June has been an exciting month for the USA Junior National Teams and High Performance Pathways as the Men’s U20s and Women’s U23s took the pitch for high quality internationals this month.
Furthering the excitement was the results where the Women’s U23s lifted the American Rugby Trophy from Brazil and the Men’s U20s defeated Canada in a two-match series to qualify for the World Rugby U20s Trophy. The encouraging tours from both squads have USA Rugby High Performance excited for a promising future on the USA Eagles XVs pitch.
The USA Women’s U23s ventured to São Paulo for the Americas Rugby Trophy which included fixtures against host Brazil and Columbia. Drawing against Brazil after a last minute try from the hosts and finishing with a 27-24 win over Columbia four days later. A few recently capped USA Eagles led the squad, including Captain and 2023 MA Sorensen Award winner Keia Mae Sagapolu, alongside a few sevens and collegiate standouts from the USA pathway. Playing against two senior national team sides, the next in line USA Eagles impressed from South America.
USA Women’s U23s Head Coach Katie Dowty noted after the tour “What this U23 team showed in Brazil was nothing short of remarkable. At an average age of just 21 years old, they topped the 26th ranked senior women’s national team in the world. Together they are learning to play the game at blistering pace, learning the battles within the game, and learning how to win. Their physicality and gain line success matched world-class levels. They are the future; they are hungry and they love to compete. For those who are paying attention, I believe they just put the rugby world on notice.
We are grateful to World Rugby, South American Rugby, and Brazil Rugby for organizing this incredible experience. For all teams involved it was a much-needed opportunity to test ourselves and move the women’s game forward. For our all-female USA staff, this was a perfect chance to step into the international arena and test ourselves as well. We hope to see the tournament continue and expand in future!”
The Women’s U23s will next head north to Ottawa for another international series alongside the Women’s Eagles Pacific Four Series in July. Dates, times and streaming details are to be confirmed.
During the same week, Head Coach Kyle Sumsion led the Men’s U20s to Spartanburg, SC for a two-match qualifier series against Canada U20s with sights set on competing in the U20s World Rugby Trophy next month in Kenya. Needing a pair of wins or victory on points aggregate, the USA were in complete control winning both games, 43-21 and 39-14 respectively. Preparing in camp for over three weeks with the support of donors, the US Rugby Foundation and Major League Rugby, the assembly time and team cohesion was at an all-time high for this program and results showed as the USA will return to the U20s Trophy for the first time since 2016.
Sumsion said after the series, “We have 32 extremely talented players in camp and it was incredible to see every player fully committed to helping the team qualify for the Trophy for the first time since 2016, regardless of the role they had. Right now, we are enjoying the win, but everybody is excited to get back to work and better ourselves as a team and individuals. Both games against Canada brought forth so many learnings for us and as a team we are looking forward to implementing them into our game as we have a much better performance in us.
Our focus was qualifying for the Kenya and Canada was our first obstacle. Now that we have qualified our goals have shifted and we are going to compete and show the world what we can do on that stage. With that in mind, the message for the team is centered around using the time away to rest and recover while also completing the rugby and conditioning program that they have in place to ensure that when they return, we can pick up where we left off.”
The Men’s U20s first kickoff against against Uruguay U20s in Kenya on July 15 with streaming details soon to come.
