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Atlantis Men's Elite. Like all 5 Atlantis sides, our preparation was severely impacted by the weather in the Northeast. By the time everyone arrived, practice consisted of a quick 20 minutes for a group of players half of whom were meeting each other for the first time. By the time we left, we were just a minute or so short of defeating our second national team of the weekend and getting to the Plate Final.

Six players were from the greater Philadelphia area, two from Cleveland, two from Kansas City/State and one each from Florida and Colorado.

Roster, Atlantis Men's Elite (Atlantis Rookies are in red)

Player Name	7s Pos.	Jersey	Atlantis Number	Gender Number	Age	Club
Tyler Barberi	P,H	VII	944	583	27	Schuylkill River
Phil Bolton	C,F	IX	849	537	30	Cleveland Rovers
Bruce Dolan	W,H	VI	945	584		Kutztown U.
Walt Elder	P,C	XIII	931	576	22	Kansas State
Tristan Gray	F,C	V	946	585	22	Boca Raton
Chris Mattina	C,F	VIII	934	579	20	U.Delaware/ NYAC
Shawn Riley *	back	XI	988	608	23	Notre Dame College
Jimmy Rosato	P,H	I	947	586	25	Schuylkill River
Kenny Scott	W	II	847	535	24	KC Blues
Glenn Thommes	P,H,W	III	937	582	21	U.Delaware/Schuylkill R.
Mitch Vannoy	S	X	948	587		U.Delaware
Austin Welch	S,F	IV	949	589	24	Glendale

* Shawn began the tournament with Men's Aces; he came to the Men's Elite on the second day as injury replacement for Jimmy Rosato.

Atlantis Men's Elite Staff was: Bjorn Haglid, manager; Chris Ryan and Julie McCoy, coaches. Overall for Atlantis at Las Vegas, Biddy Boyle was Manager and Emil Signes, Emperor.

Game Results and Scoring

Game Results, Men's Elite

Date	Type	Opponent	W/L	PF	PA
1/23/14	Pool	Peru	W	14	5
1/23/14	Pool	cOUScOUS (Bahamas)	W	20	5
1/23/14	Pool	New Orleans Royale Select	L	7	22
1/24/14	Plate QF	Chicago Lions	W	26	12
1/24/14	Plate SF	Chile	L	17	22
Totals			3-2	84	61

Day 1: Pool Matches. Atlantis played at Star Nursery fields, on the grounds of Sam Boyd Stadium, the home of the USA Sevens.

Atlantis 14 Peru 5. We pretty much dominated this game, which was a nice win, as we had been defeated by Peru last year in a very close match.

2014-01-23 Scrum for first try.jpg / 2014-01-23 behind own goal to try.jpg
Two sequences from our first try, more than a 100-m try from enterprising play in our own In-Goal.
Click here to see the try.

About to steal ball that led to second try

2014-01-23 Turnover that leads to 2nd try.jpg /2014-01-23 Men's try 2.jpg

Left: Chris (top) will take off the arriving supporter and Austin (green shoes) will poach ball; Kenny (left) will score
Right: Austin's break following his poach leads to Kenny's try
Click here to see the try

Atlantis 20 cOUScOUS 5.

A lot of steam went out of the team with Jimmy Rosato's leg injury in the first minute, and it took the boys some time to get back into it. In the end they played well to defeat this good Bahamas' squad.

For the second time in two games we scored a try that covered 95 meters from original source of possession. Almost reminiscent of the "old days" of keep-away sevens, it took 8 passes, and there were no rucks.

Interestingly, 3 of our 4 tries initiated from lineouts, two ours and one theirs. On average, there aren't that many lineouts in sevens, but ... if you win them, good things can happen. And vice versa.

And - on reflection - I have only rarely used one jumper, one lifter on an offensive lineout, but it does make it difficult for the other team to defend if they're not used to lifting one with one.

2014-01-23 LO to try 2 vs couscous.jpg
The lineout that led to a 100-m try vs. cOUScOUS
To see all tries we scored in this game, click on the image

Atlantis 7 New Orleans Royale Select 22.

We won our kickoff to start the game; Shawn Riley took it to the left edge, where we stressed the NOLA defense and we spun it back to the right edge for Glen Thommes to score. Following the ensuing kickoff, NOLA pushed us off our scrum deep in their own territory and converted it into a try by one of their guest players. The score stayed even into the second half, 7-7.

A couple minutes into the second half, New Orleans kicked a penalty to go ahead 10-7, and then they scored two tries in the last minute to make the score look bigger than most of the game. The game could have gone either way all the way until a yellow card - on viewing the video, a rather harsh yellow card - completed our demise as New Orleans immediately scored two tries and finished us off, 22-7.dd

2014-01-23g3-Shawn starts try.jpg / 2014-01-23g3 Glen scores try.jpg
First try left: from the KO, Shawn draws 3 defenders, will provide ball to recycle
Right: ball reverses field, Glen breaks tackle and scores try
Click here to see video of the try

Day 2: Elimination Matches. Atlantis played all its matches at Star Nursery fields next to Sam Boyd Stadium.

We have no documentation, in either the form of still pictures or video, of either of these games.

Atlantis 26 Chicago Lions 12.

The Lions scored first, but we came back and by the end it was a fairly solid victory.

Atlantis 17 Chile 22. This was a heart-breaker; we were ahead 17-10 when Chile counter-attacked an Atlantis kick to score and they scored the winning try with no time left. It was a very disappointing way to end the tournament, as after we let Chile come back they ended up winning the Plate championship.

But we'll be back next year and continuous improvement is always a goal.

While the final game ended on a down note, we were pleased with the progress of the team and left wishing the weather back east could have cooperated so that we could have gotten another couple of hours of team building. Nevertheless we were pleased with a lot of the good things we did and and we'll be back next year; continuous improvement is an achievable goal that we will strive to accomplish.

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January 23-24, 2014: Atlantis Men's Elite at Las Vegas

Game Results and Scoring