Chloe Storie-Soth and The BC Elite Sevens team won the Plate Final and finished fifth overall in the girls division at the World School Sevens tournament in Auckland, New Zealand earlier this month.
Storie-Soth, a Shawnigan Lake School student raised in the Cowichan Valley, had to make the difficult decision between playing at the World School Sevens tournament and joining the national U18 women’s team for their trip to California on Dec. 26-30. The BC Elite Sevens team was the first female rugby side from Canada to be included in the highly regarded World School Sevens tournament.
The team won all three games on the first day of the tournament, Dec. 13, beating Tonga Heilala 22-17, NZ Dutch 24-0, and Central Coast Seahawks 20-0. They lost their first game of the second day to NZ Maori by a narrow 5-0 margin, then defeated Rugby Academy Fiji 35-14 and Mako 7s 19-0.
Athletes for the girls team were picked from several different teams across B.C., including the Rugby Canada Development Academy in Langford.
“These girls have been playing with and against each other for some time now in both club, regional and provincial fixtures,” coach Darcy Patterson said. “This familiarity really helped the team gel quickly and play as one attacking whole. That adaptability is so vital when you’re taking a team half way around the world and have just a few days to prepare before the tournament starts and I can’t praise the players enough. This group was one of the best to work with from both an on-field and off-field perspective.”