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The Seattle Seawolves earned their second win of the season on Sunday, defeating the San Diego Legion 21-15 at Starfire Stadium. It was a scrappy contest with neither side ever really able to find their rhythm as hard-hitting defense dominated the gainline.
New arrival AJ Alatimu made an immediate impact for Seattle. From an attacking scrum his flat cut-out pass found Shalom Suniula, who in turn passed to Ross Neal. The giant winger powered through the tackle of Ryan Matyas to score in the left corner. Alatimu’s first kick from the tee was a beautiful sideline conversion to make it 7-nil with six minutes on the clock.
Carlo de Nysschen had an opportunity for points soon after but his radar was off and the flags stayed down. Instead it was an Alatimu penalty goal just ahead of the hydration break that made it 10 points to nothing for Seattle, which nearly held all the way to halftime.
San Diego managed to conjure a try on the last play before heading to the sheds, with Tai Enosa matching Alatimu’s play with a miss-out pass to Bjorn Basson who put Cole Zarcone away in the corner. de Nysschen couldn’t make the kick and it was 10-5 after 40 minutes.
A third miss had de Nysschen visibly frustrated but he made good on a penalty almost 10 minutes into the second half. The Legion were struggling to find success on attack but Cameron Clark somehow found a gap, slicing through and offloading to Basson back on his outside for the finish. There was no missing this time for de Nysschen and San Diego suddenly had a 15-10 lead.
Celebrations quickly turned to frowns as the Seawolves snatched their second try just a couple minutes later. With the Legion on the back foot, JP Smith picked out Kieran Joyce on his right, who made the simple pass to Sitiveni Tamaivena to crash over in the right corner.
The conversion proved too difficult for Alatimu, but he would connect with two successful three-pointers in a span of four minutes to build a 21-15 lead for the Seawolves. They would nearly score again just before full-time, with Seattle opting instead to kick the ball dead on a penalty to make the victory official.
It’s a short turnaround for San Diego who will host the NOLA Gold in Los Angeles on Saturday. The Seawolves are back on Sunday with a challenging road trip to Leesburg where Old Glory DC awaits.
SCORING
SEATTLE 21
Tries – R. Neal (5’), S. Tamaivena (58’)
Cons – A. Alatimu 1/2 (6’)
Pens – A. Alatimu 3/3 (20’, 62’, 66’)
SAN DIEGO 15
Tries – C. Zarcone (40’), B. Basson (54’)
Cons – C. de Nysschen 1/2 (55’)
Pens – C. de Nysschen 1/3 (49’)
TEAMS
SEATTLE SEAWOLVES
1 Huluholo Mo’ungaloa (17 Mike Shepherd 62′), 2 James Malcolm (16 Obert Nortjé 62’), 3 Tim Metcher (18 Jake Ilnicki 55’), 4 Conor McGill, 5 Samu Manoa (20 Eric Duechle 49’), 6 Tommy Clark (19 Ben Landry HT), 7 Andrew Durutalo, 8 Riekert Hattingh (capt.), 9 JP Smith (21 Devereaux Ferris 62’), 10 AJ Alatimu, 11 Ross Neal, 12 Kieran Joyce (22 Seta Tuilevuka 69′), 13 Shalom Suniula, 14 Sitiveni Tamaivena (23 Aaron Mathews 72’), 15 Mat Turner
SAN DIEGO LEGION
1 Cronan Gleeson (17 Faka’osi Pifeleti 55’), 2 Dean Muir (21 Peter Malcolm 49’), 3 Chris Baumann (18 Aaron Mitchell 55’), 4 Ben Mitchell (19 Jasa Veremalua 60′), 5 Joshua Furno, 6 Michael Smith, 7 Psalm Wooching, 8 Travis Larsen (16 Tevita Tameilau 49’), 9 Carlo de Nysschen (22 Ethan McVeigh 72′), 10 Tai Enosa, 11 Cole Zarcone, 12 Cameron Clark (capt.), 13 Bjorn Basson (23 Patrick Madden 72’), 14 Ryan Matyas, 15 Cecil Afrika
Not used: 20 Victor Comptat
MATCH OFFICIALS
Referee: Federico Anselmi (Argentina)
Assistants: Brett Johnson (USA) & Ryan Curtis (USA)
