A quartet of players from the Cowichan Valley helped the BC Elite Youth Sevens U18 team take their third straight title at the Hong Kong Sevens tournament late last month.
George Barton, Tyler Beselt and Wesley Wong of Shawnigan Lake School and Brentwood College's Aaron Hersant were all members of the B.C. team that topped Hong Kong's own Discovery Bay Pirates 12-7 in double overtime of the Cup Final to bring home the championship once again.
Barton and Beselt, who grew up in Duncan and Shawnigan Lake, respectively, are also products of the Cowichan Rugby Football Club, while Hersant hails from Victoria and Wong calls Hong Kong home. All four played key roles as the B.C. team went undefeated through three games in the round robin. Barton and Wong scored tries in the first game, a 49-0 win
over Singapore's DHL Lions, while Hersant kicked seven conversions. Wong also scored in the second game, and Hersant had five conversions, as B.C. beat Hong Kong's DEA Tigers 35-0. The third round-robin game, a 47-0 win over Hong Kong's Flying Kukris, featured two tries by Barton and one by Beselt, along with four conversions by Hersant.