Pygmies Finish Season with Heads Held High

The New Mexico Tech Pygmy Rugby Football Club traveled to Albuquerque on May 15, 2004, to compete in the Rio Grande Sevens Tournament. (A rugby sevens game consists of seven players to a side, instead of the usual fifteen.) They also proudly bade farewell to graduating seniors Alex Bourandas (chemical engineer), Captain Mark Kelly (environmental engineer), and Katsuya “Kats” Sugimoto (electrical engineer).

Tech’s first opponent of the two-bracket round robin tournament was the Albuquerque Aardvarks. The Aardvarks entered two teams into the tournament, and the first match was against their “A” side. The Aardvarks “A” team was composed of arguably the top seven members of the Aardvarks fifteen team, who were a major contribution in their lopsided victory over the Pygmies on April 24.

The game started out right where the last one left off, with aggressive play and awesome ball handling by the Aardvarks. Socorro was able to hold Albuquerque to one try (a try is the equivalent of an American football touchdown) in the first half (which are coincidentally seven minutes long during sevens games). This was followed by three tries scored in the second half by the Aardvarks. Unlike their April match, the Pygmies were held scoreless throughout the entire game, which ended 0-26.

After an hour of rest and recovery, Tech was called upon to face the Aardvarks again, only this time it was their “B” squad. The Pygmies fought hard and came out strong, with senior Patrick Simons scoring a try early in the game. Tech freshmen Matt Nelson and Tory Tadano, true to form, soon followed with tries of their own.

The second half, however, was a different story. Again, Tech’s group, composed of mostly freshmen, was taken advantage of with subtle rule differences between sevens and fifteens play. This assisted the “B” side in scoring four tries in the second half, with one coming at the final whistle, giving a final score of 17 - 24, a true heartbreaker.

For their final game, Socorro was pitted against the Scottsdale Blues, last year’s tournament winners and this year’s expected champions. The Pygmies battled fiercely against all odds, yet still managed to have a quick try scored against them in the opening minutes of the game. After the itch to play rugby became greater than the satisfaction of walking to receive his diploma, Sugimoto showed up just in time for the last game to score his final try in a Pygmy jersey. This ignited the stands, and the rest of the game became a real crowd-pleaser.

Although the Blues scored a try two minutes into the second half, the game was far from over. Just as in soccer, the game does not end if a play is still in progress, and the final play lasted over three minutes (which seemed like an hour for those of us playing!). The ball was run back and forth nearly the full length of the football-sized field several times, with both teams battling with the ball for a final visit to the try zone. After eight and a half minutes into the second half, an exhausted Tadano visited his adopted home for five more points, making the final score 10 - 12. Although the two point conversion failed, referee Anthony Nichols said, “That was the finest match of the day, both teams played hard and fast. The Pygmies gave the Blues as much as they could take, and the game could have gone either way. It was truly a pleasure to ref (the match).”

In the semi-finals, the Leathernecks of Durango beat a worn out Scottsdale Blues team, 18-12; and the Aardvarks “A” beat Highland Vatos, 30-5. The “A” team then won the final over Longnecks, 29-5. The Pygmies will welcome back several members when they resume play at the beginning of next semester in August.

-NMT-