SAS participated in the annual middle school coed touch rugby tournament hosted by Dulwich College  Saturday, October 17, and for the second straight year our teams simply dominated the playing field. Eight international school teams were divided into two groups or “pools” to play a round robin format with the top two teams from each pool advancing to the semifinals.

Puxi Campus sent two teams and Pudong Campus registered one for this year’s Dulwich Cup. The two west campus teams (Puxi) were coached as one squad by Tony Erni and Lou Wegener until the final practice the day prior to the tourney when team selections were decided. After the round robin, the east campus (Pudong), coached by David Hope and Cody Howitt, was undefeated in their pool as was the Puxi campus first team coached by Tony Erni. The other Puxi campus team finished second in their pool losing only to their brother campus, Pudong’s talented squad.

This meant that the two Puxi campus teams had to square off in the semis with the winner advancing to the final and the loser competing for third place. The Pudong campus team meanwhile had to defeat a skillful YCIS Puxi team in the other semifinal.

The Puxi campus first team narrowly defeated the Puxi campus second team by a 2-1 score while the Pudong campus rolled over Yew Chung 5-1 in the other semifinal.

This set up a rematch of last year’s Dulwich Cup final between our two campuses. The Pudong campus team had outscored opponents 27-1 in their first four matches and was eager to get another shot at the defending champion, the Puxi campus team.

The final was a thrilling defensive struggle with both teams trying to penetrate the other’s defensive line to score a try. After Pudong tied the game, the game remained finely balanced with both teams having opportunities to score until Puxi managed to score the deciding try on a disputed play deemed a try by the Dulwich referees.

While those two teams were battling it out for the gold medal, the Puxi campus second team was trying to defeat a very fast YCIS team to earn the bronze medal. Since regulation play ended in a 1-1 tie, the overtime format took effect. One player from each team was removed making it easier to score. After two minutes it was still a draw, so another player was removed making it four on four. Finally, with only three players left per team, Ian Michaud scored the “Golden Try” making it a clean sweep of the medals for SAS teams.

Jonathan Hanitio and Kiah Love-Latzky were the Puxi campus recipients of the Coach’s Choice- Most Valuable Player medal. Jonathan, along with Douglas Lu, was our offensive threat in every match while Kiah played stellar defense especially in the consolation match.

Although the Pudong campus team named Travis Pruprak as their Coach’s Choice, the team as a whole really came together. Scores were made by several players including the efforts of both of our sets of twins, Levi and Noah Berg, and Sebastian and Oliver Christiansen.  Royce Chen and Cleet Wrzeskinski scored utilizing their nimble moves.  Very effective defense was supplied by Ivory Loh and Haley Beebee who shut down other teams on the line. 

The fact that both campuses’ teams have been very successful the past two years can be summed up by this compliment from another school’s coach at the end of the tourney: “SAS teams always seem so confident and they fight to the finish, and I wish our coaches could instill that in our players.” 
I have a feeling that our two campuses will be fighting each other to the finish again next year at the Dulwich Cup.

By Lou Wegener, Puxi Campus CISSA Coordinator