New England Prime Take Third at Newport 7s

The New England Prime squad, a combined team made up of the top sevens players from Mystic River and Middlesex, improved on their showing in the previous edition of the NRU 7s Series in New Jersey.

The boys kicked off the day with two solid wins, beating Old Blue II 43-5 and Morris 22-5. They met a much stiffer test in their third match of the day against NYAC, falling behind 0-15 at the half. However, they stormed back in the second half with tries from Chris Frazier, Jared Collinson and Aaron Smith to take the match 17-15.

The Prime started their semifinal against the Connecticut Bulldogs on a roll, and took an early 12-0 lead, but fell off the pace to lose the match 12-26. The third place playoff against Boston was a truly gruelling affair at the end of the day. The Prime finally managed to pull out a 10-5 win in the second period of overtime, and claimed a hard-fought third place for their own.