The Yale Lions boys and the Bateman Timberwolves girls battled their way to the top of the heap at the Abbotsford Rugby Football Club’s annual high school sevens tournament last Friday.
The event was contested at the Yale Secondary, and the host Lions made great use of home field advantage – their senior and junior boys teams swept to victory in their respective divisions.
The senior boys tourney doubled as a Fraser Valley regional qualifier for the B.C. sevens championship, with the top four teams advancing to the provincials at UBC this coming weekend.
Yale dominated – they didn’t allow a single try all tournament long, blasting Bateman and Elgin Park by identical 35-0 scores in the semifinals and finals, respectively.
“We don’t spend much time working on it (sevens as opposed to 15’s),” admitted Lions coach Doug Primrose, whose team is ranked No. 3 in B.C. in the 15’s version of the sport. “We’ve got some pretty good athletes this year and they played pretty well.”
The Yale senior boys will be joined at sevens provincials by Bateman and Surrey schools Elgin Park and Clayton Heights. The T-Wolves beat Clayton Heights 35-12 in the bronze medal game.
On the junior boys scene, Yale topped Bateman 28-7 in the final.
The senior girls tourney was a round robin, and the T-Wolves went 3-0 to clinch the title. Their stiffest test came against the defending provincial sevens champions from Abbotsford Senior, but they prevailed by a 12-10 score.
