Cima kick hands defeat to Uruguay

Ben Cima has done it again. The All-American flyhalf landed a long-range penalty goal on full-time to break a deadlock against Uruguay, earning JD Stephenson’s team the win and 5th place overall. While their tournament standing has not met their hopes going in, they will be pleased to end on a high.

It was a finish reminiscent to the one that knocked out Canada in the qualifier at Dell Diamond. With scores level and time up on the clock, the Americans launched an attack only to knock on. A flag was raised for foul play by one of the officials, however, and a punch thrown by Luis Zeballos behind the play earned the fullback a red card and Cima his chance to knock over the winner from just inside halfway.

The first half was a frantic period of rugby. Zeballos began a hero before turning villain, scoring the opening try for Los Teritos but swiftly countered by American skipper Hanco Germishuys with his tournament-leading 8th try in only four games. Sebastián Pfieff got one back moments later for Uruguay, again erased this time by Cima. Malon Al-Jiboori nudged his team ahead with a try 10 minutes later but that was met by Luis Durán on the halftime whistle.

Leading by two at the break thanks to Felipe Etcheverry’s conversion, Uruguay spoke first in the second stanza through winger Martín Fitipaldo. That would be his last act of the day as a scuffle with Brian Hannon landed both a trip to the sin bin to cool down.

Lorenzo Surraco’s yellow card six minutes player made it 14 players on 13, but no scores were added until Duncan van Schalkwyk went over thanks to some quick hands from Cima. The conversion went over but the All-Americans still trailed by two. Cima would make it even with a penalty late in the hour setting up his heroics on the final play.

Los Teritos finish in 6th spot. Other results from the final day saw Hong Kong defeat hosts Zimbabwe 44-40 to claim 7th spot. Fiji brushed past Namibia 44-30 in the third place match. Samoa were crowned champions after defeating Spain 38-32 in an entertaining finale to earn graduation to the top flight u20 Championship in 2017.

URUGUAY 30
Tries – L. Zeballos (6), S. Pfieff (12), L. Durán (40), M. Fitipaldo (42)
Cons – F. Etcheverry 3 (12, 40, 42)
Yellow cards – M. Fitipaldo (42), L. Surraco (48)
Red cards – L. Zeballos (80)

USA 32
Tries – H. Germishuys (9), B. Cima (20), M. Al-Jiboori (30), D. van Schalkwyk (66)
Cons – B. Cima 2 (10, 67)
Pens – B. Cima 2 (77, 80)
Yellow cards – B. Hannon (42)

URUGUAY
1 Rodrigo Lamé (Agustín Sosa 50) 2 Yamandú Arburúas 3 Guillermo Pujadas (Jaime Coll 69) 4 Mike Johnson (Juan Cruz Codesal 50) 5 Lorenzo Surraco 6 Agustín Ortas (capt.) (Matías Brignoni 55) 7 Sebastián Pfieff (Federico Bruno 57) 8 Santiago Civetta 9 Lucas Durán 10 Felipe Etcheverry 11 Martín Fitipaldo (Iñaki Ormaechea 52) 12 Agustín Della Corte 13 Guillermo Williamson 14 Rafael Olaso (Bautista Mascia 55) 15 Luis Zeballos

USA
1 Sam Benkowski (Roman Salanoa 12) 2 Steven Branham (Ruairi Van Raalte 71) 3 Mason Pedersen (Chance Wenglewski 75) 4 Bronson Teles (Veuki Taumoefolau 71) 5 Deven Marshall (Chad Sneyd 60) 6 Malon Al-Jiboori 7 Brennan Falcon 8 Hanco Germishuys (capt.) 9 Louis Mulholland (Ruben de Haas 62) 10 Ben Cima 11 Devin Lima 12 Duncan van Schalkwyk 13 Brian Hannon 14 Tyler Sousley 15 Mitch Wilson

Not used: Rodney Giles