2024 was a very busy year for Atlantis Rugby. One of the highlights was the fact that we were able to officially announce ourselves as a USA Rugby High Performance Verified National Development Program making us one of only six programs across the country to earn this distinction.
We were recognized as a program that has demonstrated the ability to offer an ongoing sports development program for athletes between the ages of 12-25 that seeks to improve players’ and coaches’ capabilities to compete for places in college rugby, elite club rugby, professional rugby, and USA Rugby National Team programs.
Another highlight was branching out into 15s in order to provide even more high level development opportunities to a greater variety of athletes. We have already put five 15s sides into play across three separate divisions and will only continue to grow that segment of our program.
From a numbers standpoint, the first number we awarded in 2024 was player number 1864 to Regan Jackson at Tropical 7s and we made it all the way to player 2045 when we awarded that number to Michael Addesso for an Academy match against Young Glory.
That is a truly incredible amount of numbers to award in just one year and the highlight was probably Nora Rosenburg earning the long anticipated Player Number 2000. We also finally caught up to the year by awarding Player Number 2024 to Kaiya Wrigley in 2024. If we continue this pace we may potentially award player number 2500 as early as 2026!
Here is a very quick event by event recap of 2024 with links to our articles for folks that would like to read more:
Atlantis sent 9 sides to Tropical 7s last year.
U16 Boys Open (The “U15s”) won their 20-team division to bring home the cup.
U14 Boys took second in their 15-team division. Only losing to a strong Australian side.
U16 Girls won the Plate in the Elite Division.
U18 Girls Elite, U16 Boys Elite, our other U16 Boys Open all took fourth.
U14 Girls were plate runner ups.
U16 Boys took third at National Youth 7s in Ohio in June.
Our first ever 15s side – U18 Boys – took second place at the Rugby Ohio Buckeye Invitational. This followed a series of 15s Academy training sessions following the local state based competitions.
Our Senior Women went to Cape Fear and went 6-0 to win the tournament.
We sent 11 sides to North American Invitation in Utah.
U16 Boys Teal took second place.
U18 Girls Elite, U14 Boys Tier 1, U14 Boys Tier 2 combined to go 13-5 and all brought home third place finishes.
The U16 Boys (U15s) took fourth.
U16 Boys Tier 2 won the Bowl and U18 Boys Elite won the Shield.
U16 Girls were bowl runner ups.
The 15s Academy returned for the fall and we had a fall clinic in Delaware featuring USA Eagle legend Kris Thomas providing incredible instruction for the attendees.
At the Old North State Invitation for 15s the U16 Boys won the Championship while the U18 Girls took second place. The teams combined to go 6-1-1 on the weekend to make for a really great weekend for the 15s Academy overall.
Atlantis put 3 high school girls sides into action at New York 7s. We didn’t have any Boys sides, but the Rugby PA tryouts featured about a dozen Atlantis coaches providing instruction and doing selections and the Rugby PA sides in New York themselves were coached by Atlantis Personnel.
The Girls went a combined 10-2 overall with the Premier Side going undefeated to win the tournament. Our Club side went 3-1 to take second and our second Club side “Teal” went 3-1 to win the Bowl. The Rugby PA Boys won the Premier Bowl and made the Plate Semi-Final in Club.
We sent both Senior Men and Senior Women to Grenada once again. The men took second place while the women finished in third.
The same weekend as Grenada our U18 and U16 Boys 15s sides took on Young Glory. The U18s earned a 26-5 victory while the U16s almost pulled off the double before falling 35-38.
Atlantis Rugby can’t wait to see what’s in store for us in 2025!
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