The Kenya National U20 Team, Chipu, wrapped up their Pool B matches with a 17-30 loss to USA on Friday 12th July at the Hive Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland.
USA drew first blood with an unconverted try in the 16th minute of the match with the conversion attempt by Oliver Cline going wide. USA seemed more dominant in this half but they were unable to penetrate Chipu’s defense until the 35th minute when Tito Edjua drilled in a penalty kick. Three minutes later, James Olela put Chipu on the scoreboard through a penalty kick. Halftime time scores read 3-8.
In the second half, USA landed three successive tries between the 42nd and the 62nd minutes of the match through Luke Schaefer, Keelan Farrell and Rand Santos with Edjua converting the first two and missing the last one. Chipu finally got and played the ball in hand sending it to winger Elvis Otete who rounded his defender before cutting through two other oncoming defenders to land Chipu’s first try in the match.
Flyhalf Philip Okeyo, sure with his boot added the conversion and with no time to waste the team had formed for a restart. Their urgency showing, the backline sent the ball wide to find Otete once more who rounded his defender, showed off his grabber kick prowess which saw Daniel Kipchirchir’s support result into a try as he grounded the ball. Okeyo adding the extras.
Kipchirchir was an early replacement for Michael Wamalwa in the 30th minute.
Despite Chipu’s efforts to reduce the gap, the clock was not on their side as the match ended 17-30 in favour of USA.
Featured image courtesy of Denis Ekanusu
