Cleveland Academy Sevens came out of almost nowhere to claim a USA Rugby Men’s Club Sevens Championships spot — how did that happen?

It happened because of how the Midwest season is put together; it happened because when you try to predict how tournaments will proceed, you run into trouble. It also happened by design.

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The Cleveland Academy came into being because a group of players and coaches wanted to establish a high-level team in Cleveland. 

“I’ve played on the Midwest sevens circuit for the past ten years,” said Luke Markovich, who coaches at Notre Dame College and is coaching the Cleveland Academy. “The talent in this area is ripe for the picking, and we wanted to partner with the teams in the area.”

That would be the Cleveland Crusaders, Notre Dame College, and other colleges and even high schools.

“We had guys who were traveling two hours each way to play with 1823 in Columbus, and we felt the summer was the right time to start something in Cleveland,” said Markovich.

And that’s what they did. They brought in college players such as Cullen Barely, Cory Graham, and Zach Forro of Notre Dame College, and Andrew Baldado from Ohio State. They added some longtime club players and were somewhat fortunate to have Tongan-born Siosiua Vaiangina, who has moved to Ohio for a time.

“We was not on our radar at all but he was on board quickly and he’s been a great addition, and Cory Graham and Zach Forro are two guys who, when they’re on, they can play with some of the best players in the country,” said Markovich.

So that’s who they are, but they came out of nowhere, in part because the Academy team wasn’t able to field all of its players in any one tournament.

“We were missing guys all the time, and we knew that would happen because the guys told us,” said Markovich. “But we had everyone for the championship tournament.”

Somewhat stealthily, then, the Academy earned enough points to make the eight-team Midwest Championships. And once there, the Academy was primed to surprise. In the same pool as top-ranked club Metropolis, the Academy might have expected to take second in the pool and probably play the Chicago Lions in the semis — the winner of each semi getting a seed to nationals.

But it didn’t work out that way. The first game of the day was the Academy against Metropolis, and the Minneapolis club, still stiff from a long bus ride, was shocked.

“We knew they were tired, and we wanted to come at them with our best lineup,” said Markovich. “We decided to challenge them at every restart and make things uncomfortable for them. Our defense had great line speed, and we knocked them off their pattern.”

Cleveland Academy won, and it sent shock waves through the tournament. Even after the Academy tied the Chicago Blaze, the Cleveland team still won the pool, and faced Cincinnati in the semis. Meanwhile, as expected, the Chicago Lions won their pool, only to find a surprise of their own — Metropolis, second in its pool, would play the Lions in the semis.

After that first loss, Metropolis was its regular self, crushing the opposition. The semi was a 45-0 shutout for Metropolis, a humbling lessons for the Lions in how you can’t control everything. The Lions had expected to meet Metropolis in the final. Instead …

The Cleveland Academy played a wide game that forced Cincinnati to chase them, and came away 22-12 winners. In the final, Metropolis got revenge, shutting out the Academy 34-0 - an astounding 79-0 in the final two games of the championship. But for the Cleveland Academy, enough had been done to book a ticket to New York City.

“We were the only ones not shocked by it,” said Markovich. “We knew we had a good team. We just needed to get everyone together at the same time. And not backing down from Metropolis in that first game was huge.”