Atlantis Rugby Goes 21-6 at NY7s! Two Sides Go Undefeated!

Atlantis Rugby Senior Women Won the 2025 New York 7s Championship

Another great New York 7s Tournament is in the books and Atlantis Rugby is thrilled with all of the outstanding performances we saw yesterday!

Our Senior Women competed in this tournament for the first time since 2021 and won the championship with a 6-0 record. It was a triumphant return for our Women’s Head Coach Josie Ziluca who put together a side that was highly motivated to bring home the Cup.

Pool play included wins over Bean Burgers (28-14), Ironmaidens (29-10), Ravens (29-5), and New York (33-14) to earn the number 1 seed in the knockout rounds. The semifinal was a rematch against the Ravens and in the final Atlantis was again victorious over our hosts from New York.

The roster for the senior women included the following players:

Savanna Beans

Emma Buxton

Chloe Headland

Miranda Heffelfinger

Kacie Hymers

Lauren Kuffel

Merrin McSorley

Eleanor Pitera

Becca Silver

Grace Todesco

PK Vincze

No rest for Coach Josie! She’ll be coaching another Atlantis Women’s side at Grenada Rugby World 7s this upcoming Friday and Saturday. Good luck!

Our other undefeated side yesterday was the HS Girls Black side. The girls went 3-0 in pool play with wins over Mystic River (33-12), Beaconsfield (19-17), and Rogue Girls (24-0). Unfortunately for our girls, the tournament had 5 pools of 4 teams and each pool had an undefeated team so it came down to point differential for the semi-final spots and we ended up on the outside looking in.

However, that did not deter our team, and may have lit a fire under them instead as they earned a 43-0 victory over Rugby PA’s Blue side in the Plate semifinals. The Plate final was a close 22-19 win over a very strong North Bay program to wrap up a 5-0 tournament.

The HS Girls Black side actually was not the only Atlantis side to run into North Bay in the knockout rounds. Our HS Girls Teal side went 2-1 in pool play with a win over Aspetuck (37-5), loss to eventual Cup Champions Aurora Barbarians (7-17), and win over Play Rugby USA (45-0).

This time point differential worked out in our favor and Teal was able to join Black in the Plate semifinals. Their opponent was North Bay who won the match 21-27 to set up the previously mentioned Plate Final against Atlantis Black. Overall Teal went 2-2 to finish 7^th out of 20 teams and our two Club sides combined for a 7-2 record.

Our final HS Girls side was our Premier side that competed in a very strong division this year. In pool play we went 2-2 with a loss to The Rugby Advantage (19-24), win against Upright (43-7), loss to Utah Cannibals (5-24), and win against USA West (47-14).

This set up a semifinal against the talented Utah Cannibals who had lost their first match of the day but continued to get stronger as the day went on. Utah won this one 21-31 and would go on to win the Cup final as well. Atlantis re-grouped and secured third place with a very solid performance in a 43-12 win over USA West to finish 3-3 on the day.

The HS Girls rosters for New York were:

Premier:

I               Jenavive Bradford

II             Olive Rhodes

III            Allie Beckenhauer

IV            Nolah Flynn

V             Kaiya Wrigley

VI            Maggie Hoffman-Long

VII          Siena Accardi

VIII         Leah Cipollo

X             Jocelyn Terry

XI            Abbey McGettigan

XII          Giselle Long

XIII         Bridget McGonigle

Black:

I               Bianca Petrucci

II             Daryn Maloni

III            Zoe Nelson

V             Sydney Haddon

VI            Lia DeMarco

VII          Ellie Nurss

VIII         Olivia Shepler

IX            Kohme Yamazaki

X             Carys Phillips

XI            Alys Phillips

XII          Madison Morrell

XIII         Noelle Robinson

Teal:

I               Ava Thayer

II             Eva Maraki

III            Peyton Langworthy

IV            Kayla Robinson

V             Mia Genoni

VI            Sydney Zavieh

VII    Gabriela Aliaga

VIII         Sofia Singh

IX            Campbell Way

X             Mady Jones

XI            Maeve Flaherty

XII          Ariana Thomas

The outstanding coaching staff included Kate Flanagan, Karl Barth, Lauren Shissler, Lance Connolly, Stacy Mancuso, Lisa Henrich, and Jaida Rudkin.

Last, but certainly not least, Atlantis Rugby put a Boys Premier side into the tournament coached by Mike Williams and Connor Hohman. The boys went 4-0 in pool play with wins over Upright (22-0), Toronto Reds (19-14), Greenwich (45-7), and SC Barbarians (19-17).

In the knockout rounds the Boys matched up against Greenwich for a second time and were able to come away with a 43-5 victory. In the final the Boys had a rematch against Toronto Reds who were the defending champions from 2024. Toronto’s Championship experience showed and they won 15-25. It was a great tournament overall for the boys, with some important lessons learned, and they finished 5-1 overall in second.

Next up for Atlantis Rugby is the Grenada tournament mentioned above, taking place on Friday December 5 and Saturday December 6. Josie Ziluca will be coaching the women and Chris Ryan will be coaching the men.

The Men’s Roster includes:

Danny Giannascoli

Dawson Smith

Tiave Watts

Luc Desroches

Mitch Vannoy

Jim Rosato Jr

Corey Jones

James Lyons

Garrett Lyons

Quinn Western

Owen Sheehy

Alex Lyles

The Women’s Roster includes:

Sophie Pyrz

Liz Tafuna

Julia Norwood

Julia Buescher

Erika Farias

Coco Mendoza-Silva

Emily Krahn

Jo Asumang

Kit Buzby

Salome Lewis

Katie Lohaus

Way to go in New York everyone, and good luck this upcoming weekend in Grenada!