As we close another 7s summer, this is a reminder that we’ll continue playing touch on the beach on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, 6pm till dark at Tower 27 (end of Ocean Park), and on Sunday mornings starting at 10:30am.
All are welcome.
by Steven Rodriguez
Kern County Rugby Club came down from the San Joaquin Valley to participate in the Santa Monica 7’s tournament. There first two matches were both well fought and they came out victorious over Santa Monica (II) and league rivals Pasadena. Their third match they faced a well trained Huntington Beach team where fitness seemed to be the differentiator resulting in a win for Huntington. With the cup out of sight, Kern was focused on the bowl. They received a bye in the first round due to a Dead Rabbits forfeit. Kern’s next opponent was the Sin City Irish. Kern’s superb movement of the ball and dedication to defense awarded them with a 39-0 victory.
This brought Kern to the Bowl Final. They faced another league rival San Fernando. In the first half, Kern made it known immediately that they would not be beat on defense with hard hitting and strategic counter rucking. This enabled Kern to take advantage of the offensive opportunities that were given to them. At the end of the first half, Kern found themselves with 14-0 lead. During half, Kern’s leadership reminded the boys to stay focused on defense and not to let up. The result, Kern was able to capitalize on the offensive side putting on three more tries in second half which cemented the victory for Kern 31-0.
All in all, it was great day for rugby and an even better one for Kern. GO TUSKERS!!!
by Alistair Ross
The Santa Monica Dolphins came out on top of the 2nd Annual Santa Monica Sevens (SaMo7s), beating the Huntington Beach Unicorns 21-14 in the Cup Final.
The tournament welcomed some new teams to its grounds and hopefully signals the continuing growth in the sport around the state and country. Competition was stronger than expected, even with OMBAC and Belmont Shore absent from pool play (Belmont played for the National Club Championship, finishing 2nd in the Nation to Old Puget Sound Beach).
Huntington Beach, LA, Santa Monica and Kern seemed to be the main contenders for the title after the preliminary rounds. However as the rounds progressed the OC Bucks came into their own and forced their way into the Cup division, leaving Kern to battle it out for the Bowl. In the first Cup semi, Santa Monica faced longtime rivals Los Angeles. Center Kelly Serfoss, who dedicated a good portion of time learning the art of the drop kick, supplyied some deft touches on the restarts and gave his forwards - Chinedu Okolo, Pete Roses and Adam Knight - plenty of time to contest and win turnover ball. Led by Matt Strangeway, the backline ran riot with newcomer Chris Clay making his presence felt. While Los Angeles played hard and showed flashes of excellence, they lacked the consistent continuity to pull them through. Final score: Santa Monica: 40 – LARC: 7
The secound Cup semi matched Huntington Beach against the OC Bucks. The Unicorns came away with a 33 – 12 victory, setting the stage for a cracker final.
Santa Monica got off to a flying start with Chris Clay touching down for his 7th try of the day. Huntington answered back: applying consistent pressure, keeping the ball alive, and eventually seeing Mark Simpson-Daniel score near the posts. The Unis would draw blood again minutes later. Off the restart, Santa Monica maintained possession and worked the ball deep into HB territory. Clay made a break around the left corner, heading toward the goalline; however, he came up short. In attempting to recycle the ball and swing it back to the midfield, Clay threw an errant pass that Charles Simpson-Daniel (brother of Mark) intercepted and took the distance to score against the run of play. Down 14-7 with the half winding down, Clay redeemed himself by taking a pass from Spenser May and beating his man around the corner, and sprinting 50 meters for a game-tying try.
The 2nd half saw both sides battle back and forth between the 20s until Kelly Serfoss spotted a half-gap, bursted through, and found paydirt. Serfoss converted his own try and put his team up by a score. Lead by the counterattacking of Spenser May, the Dolphins turned over the ball after the restart and looked to seal the victory. However bad decision making from Santa Monica gave the ball back to Huntington in the dying moments and it seemed as if the game would go down to the wire. The Unicorns kept the ball alive and methodically moved forward. However, their attack stalled at about midfield and they eventually knocked-on. SaMo captain Matt Strangeway scooped up the loose ball and swifly kicked it into touch, assuring his side the victory and the Cup Championship.
“…OMBAC gave us all we could handle and I don’t recall a Santa Monica side as strong as today’s team in many years.”
- From a posting on rugbymag.com Saturday night by a Belmont Shore club member
SANTA BARBARA, CA -
The Dolphins traveled north EN FORCE to Ellings Park yesterday to compete for the second and final Southern California spot in the National Club Sevens tournament next month. As in Long Beach two weeks earlier, the team played some fantastic rugby, but did not reach its ultimate goal of qualification, going 1-2 on the day, with a victory over Huntington Beach and losses to Belmont Shore II and OMBAC.
The quote at the top of this e-mail says it all about how much we have grown as a Sevens program and the respect we now command from the 7s community and the current best 7s program in the country.
The following 11-man squad represented SMRC with distinction in yesterday’s Qualifier:
Matthew Strangeway (C)
Alistair Ross
Adam Knight
Chris Kelley
Joe Killefer
Kelly Serfoss
Peter Roses
Spenser May
Cris Erdtsieck
Chris Clay
Riaz Fredericks (Player/Coach)
There can be no doubt that we compete in the best Sevens union in the country, which was confirmed once again by yesterday’s results: OMBAC, a perennial national 7s champion, has also failed to qualify, while 2-times running champs Belmont Shore have qualified two squads. Despite this wealth of talent in our union, SoCal is still only alloted two spots in the 16-team nationals - this seems wrong.
Stupid Rugby Political Tricks aside, the Dolphins represented in both the Qualifier and Open brackets of the Santa Barbara tournament. The commitment, fitness, skills and game management that the guys have worked on for weeks in training was in clear evidence on the field yesterday. Crisp, long passes, excellent ball-handling and strong defense marked the play of both squads.
The qualifier team played an amazing match against Belmont’s “second” squad, comprised of no fewer than 5 former or current USA 7s Eagles. Honorable mention in that match goes to Captain Matt Strangeway for his typical ferocious defense and leadership. Strong performances were also put in by Joe Killefer, Kelly Serfoss and newcomer Chris Clay who scored a cracking try while blowing by 3 Belmont players to dot down in the corner.
Player/Coach Riaz Fredericks even joined the fray, putting in his first performance for the green and black in many years and for the first time in front of his young son Aiman.
Against Huntington Beach, the team put in a true squad effort, with Fredericks clearing the bench, and solid backline performances from Adam Knight, Ali Ross and Cris Erdtsieck. The victory set SMRC up for a showdown with traditonal foes OMBAC for a spot in the final against Belmont.
In a truly back and forth, crowd-pleasing affair the game went down to the last minute with SMRC coming up short 31-19. Kelly Serfoss played out of his mind the entire match despite a very late, out-of-bounds cheap shot from ombac early on. Strangeway played with reckless abandon on defense and Joe Killfer put in a tremendous effort in the forwards to lead SMRC. Adam Knight and Dolphin vet Chris Kelley gave their all in the match as well, both players making breaks and keeping the ball alive in key situations.
For the record, Belmont II beat OMBAC 38-24 in a late-evening, double-overtime thriller worthy of the Isner-Mahut Wimbledon match, with the go-ahead try scored by former Dolphin Duncan “DO” Oneyango.
(Write-up:
http://www.rugbymag.com/news/sevens/clubsevens/hawkins-leads-shore-to-double-dip.aspx
OPEN DIVISION -The Dolphins also competed in the Open division yesterday, posting the same 1-2 record as the Qualifier team, with an impressive victory over San Luis Obispo and losses to Mexico (Yes, the country!) and UC Santa Barbara. SMRC’s second team competed hard all day and earned their first international caps in loss to Mexico, who entered a developmental side as they look ahead to the 2016 Olympic rugby tournament.
The side was lead on the field by veteran 7s Dolphins Padraig Cremin and his lieutenant Ryan Guss, who filled in ably when Cremin had to leave to play Gaellic football (he is a man of many talents). Honorable mentions for the day go to scrumhalf Danny Carpio, who played almost every minute and keyed SMRC with a lot of big breaks from the scrum, flyhalf Shawn Cigliano and forwards Bailey Hardwick and Sam Amiri, who bolstered the scrum. Thanks also to SMRC alum Alex Rylance and his 3 Malibu RFC players that joined our squad for the day.
It was a great day for Santa Monica Sevens all around, and it was clearly the largest, most cohesive presence I have ever seen us have at a tournament. We occupied and entire end zone area and each squad supported the other all day long - we have caught the attention of Belmont and OMBAC, as well as many others. Hats off to Coach Fredericks for his leadership and attention to detail with the entire effort this summer.
Special thank yous to fitness coach Mathias Narducci and trainer Amy Fee for making the trip and donating their time yesterday - the squad was all the better for your contributions.
Though the Nationals is out of reach for this summer,we still have at least three tournaments to play and more chances to win some hardware this season. Practice will resume this week and the Long Beach Social Sevens will take place this coming Saturday, July 17th.
It was a lovely day in Long Beach yesterday as the Dolphin Sevens squad headed down to Long Beach for a bit of Sunday footie, on fields adjacent to a cricket match and one of North America’s premier competitive waterskiing and motorboating venues. Though our English teammates showed up with long faces after watching England implode v. Germany yesterday, the Dolphins were in good spirits as they entered yesterday’s National Club 7’s Qualifier, against a line up of quality opposition in OMBAC I & II and reigning National and CCS (the club tournament played in Vegas at the USA 7s) Champions Belmont Shore.
SMRC played hard against all three teams but ultimately came up short in each closely-contested match. The Dolphins played each game at a high intensity level and matched the physicality of each opponent, but in the end, small mistakes, a couple of key injuries and a few mental lapses on defense cost us. Belmont Shore won the tournament and booked their spot in the Club 7s in San Francisco on August 14th.
Coach Riaz Fredericks kept the mood very constructive afterwards and let the squad know that they had done well against the best team in the country. He also told them that he felt confident that SMRC now has the measure of the teams we will face again in two weeks.
On the very positive side, SMRC scored against all three teams, including two well-worked tries v. Belmont. Players earning honorable mention for their hard play all day are captain Matthew Strangeway, Ken Aseme, Alistair Ross and Ryan Guss. Newcomer Pete Roses also had a rumbling, bruising try with a nice side-step thrown in.
SMRC has another chance to qualify for Nationals in two weeks at Santa Barbara - we will need everyone that is playing to make it out to the next four sessions so we can eliminate the small errors and work on our fitness in the run-up to SB. We need a strong squad of 12 players ready to go.
Social Sevens is also underway, so please contact me and/or turn up to training if you would like to play on a social side at Santa Barbara so we can register a team.
Thanks
John