SAINT-DENIS, France — With a 90-yard run as the final seconds ticked off the clock, Alex Sedrick and Team USA’s women’s Eagles rugby team snatched the bronze medal off the necks of a heavily-favored Australian team to deliver America its first Olympic medal in rugby sevens.
Just a minute before, all looked lost for the Eagles as the Australians pushed the pill over the tryline to to turn a 7-7 tie into a 12-7 lead. Then the green and gold pinned the Americans deep in their own end, inching them backward as the final seconds ticked off the clock.
But then Sedrick got possession in the middle of the field and burst through a hole in the Aussie defense. In an instant, Sedrick was off on 90-yard sprint down the grass, that finished with her running through the uprights.
When she converted the kick to break the tie with no time left, the Eagles were 14-12 victors. The players on the field dropped to their knees as the bench emptied into an all-out sprint to jump on them.
It was the sweetest of turnarounds for the American women, who had lost a tough semifinal New Zealand in the afternoon, and spent much of the bronze medal game trying to break the Aussie lock on possession. But in a game with just 14 players on a massive field, anything can happen, and in the final seconds…
