By James Nelson
SMCGaels.com Correspondent

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Entering the USA Rugby College 7s National Championships this weekend, the Saint Mary's rugby team looked simply to improve upon its fourth-place finish of a year ago.

For five games, it looked like the Gaels might just pull off something even more impressive.

After running roughshod over the bracket en route to the final, Saint Mary's ran up against the defending champion Arkansas State in the championship match. The Gaels couldn't quite finish their run, falling 32-12 to the Red Wolves, but nonetheless come home with tremendous pride after improving on last year's result.

Saint Mary's cruised through the initial pool play section of the tournament on Saturday, outscoring their three opponents 108-12. In their opening match of the tournament, the Gaels defeated Middle Tennessee 49-0, then followed that up with a solid 33-17 victory over Arizona State before finally dispatching Oklahoma 42-7. With these three wins, the Gaels won their pool and earned the No. 3 seed for Sunday's quarterfinal.

In the quarterfinal match, Saint Mary's squared off against Lindenwood University. Lindenwood proved early on that it was not intimidated, scoring in the fourth minute to go ahead of the Gaels 5-0. Eventually, the Gaels' defense prevailed and St. Mary's finished the game on a 19-0 run to win 19-5.

Next up was a match against a familiar foe for the Gaels, Central Washington. Saint Mary's and Central Washington had previously faced off in the championship game of the Battle of the Bay Tournament held last month on Treasure Island, with the Gaels ultimately getting the win. The result would prove to be the same Sunday as Central Washington came out flat and was overrun by Saint Mary's attack. The Gaels jumped out to a 19-0 lead in the first five minutes and never looked back as they dominated the semifinal 34-12.

Entering the championship game the Gaels stood at 5-0 and had one of the best point differentials in the entire tournament. Unfortunately the defending champ, Arkansas State, had also run through its side of the bracket in just as dominant a fashion. The Red Wolves dispatched Dartmouth 34-5 in the semifinal and were well rested and prepared.

Although Saint Mary's fought hard the whole match, the outcome was never very much in doubt as Arkansas State jumped out to a 12-0 lead and never really looked back. The one solid chance the Gaels had came with a minute left in the first half. They scored a try to make the score 12-5, but the Red Wolves immediately responded with a try of their own before the half to keep the game out of reach. The final score came to 32-12 and although some of the Saint Mary's players were undoubtedly disappointed it was still an extremely impressive finish for the team.

For the tournament, the Gaels were led in scoring by Cooper Maloney, who had 10 tries and Joey Reavey, who contributed six tries and kicked all of the Gaels' conversion attempts. Huge efforts by seniors Lloyd Evans, Auggie Heath and Garrett Brewer as well as underclassman Holden Yungert, Will Dewhurst, and Tommy Wallace also contributed to the impressive result.