With Schuylkill River and the Maryland Exiles securing their tickets to Nationals two weeks ago, this weekend’s Mid-Atlantic CONFERENCE (MAC) Finals will determine the seeding for Seattle. Rocky Gorge will once again host the tournament in Columbia, Md.

The top eight teams in the men’s premier division, Schuylkill River, Maryland Exiles, NOVA, Norfolk, Baltimore-Chesapeake, Pittsburgh, Washington, and Rocky Gorge, will compete in pool play. The Exiles and Schuylkill River split the first two tournaments of the season with NOVA, Norfolk and Baltimore-Chesapeake earning points for third and fourth place finishes. Pittsburgh has been in striking distance in each event this summer, and Washington and Rocky Gorge have been worthy opponents in each tourney.

The MAC 7s Series has been successful this summer, even with missing one tournament. Mike Bertoni, the MAC 7s coordinator, stated, “I think overall the summer was positive. We would have liked to have held our first qualifier at NOVA in order to have a full season of four events, but WEATHER didn't cooperate closing fields in Northern Virginia. I look forward to seeing how the MAC teams stack up on the national level. Our restructuring was put into place to try and up the level of competition at every qualifier event in the summer, rather than having teams take it easy until the finals. Hopefully that increased competition level week in and week out helps our squads and their performance at Nationals.”

The Maryland Exiles were idle this past weekend while Schuylkill River traveled to the Princeton 7s to face stiff competition from the Northeast. Schuylkill advanced to the semifinals; however, they lost to the eventual tournament champion, New England Prime. In the consolation final, they faced NYAC but were unable to come away with a victory. Schuylkill used the tournament to get their young players valuable experience versus quality clubs and help others show their worth and fight for final roster spots for Nationals.

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