JOSH WYMYCZAK/Photo Editor
SHUHEI MATSUO
Assistant Online Editor
Sometimes, all it takes is just one ball to connect the world.
Representing at least 23 countries from six continents, members of the Pepperdine community united for its 10th annual KICK Soccer Tournament hosted by Pepperdine International Club (PIC) on Saturday.
Ten teams of at least eight players ran, slid and kicked the ball at Tari Frahm Rokus Field with the hope of having their name engraved on the champions’ trophy right outside of the Office of International Student Services (OISS) in the TAC. This year’s title went to defending champion Botamengo, a team consisted of freshman Lorenzo Rabello, sophomores Guigo Vilhena and PJ Clawson, juniors Juan Uranga, Drake Schoonover, Angelica Morse and Andre Quiroz, senior Juan Gaya and graduate student Juan Palomino.
Even though the event began in 1998, this is the first year all 10 teams registered before deadline. Compared to past years, enthusiasm was great this year, said Rich Dawson, director of the OISS.
“Not only there were 10 teams, but there were also four other teams who wanted to play,” said Dawson, who coordinates the event every year. “Unfortunately, we didn’t have room for them. But that shows its growing popularity.”
Dawson credited this year’s success to three people: Mary Guirgus, OISS office manager; sophomore Saeunn Chan, president of PIC; and senior Stephen Scotti, a student worker at the OISS, for their efforts in advertising.
“I definitely made one-on-one connections with a lot of international students,” Guirgus said. “And I wanted to go outside the box and connected the American students with them.”
Guirgus, a first-year staff member at Pepperdine, said she wanted to attract as many people as possible to this special event. So she and a couple of other OISS workers, seniors Katrina Perry and Mica Gil-Casas, made flyers and posters, put a table across the hall from the Oasis, painted the rock and created a Web site with a brief description of each team.
Chan, who planned the tournament with Dawson and Guirgus, also said they tried hard to make it successful because they failed to do so last year.
“This is our major event of the semester so we started planning this since December,” she said. “So we expected it to be pretty big this year.”
Considering the tournament historically had never even met the maximum team number of 10, their hard work of promoting paid off this time.
“I think this year was really good,” said Matt Kalish, coordinator of intramural club sports. “It’s my understanding that we had about eight or nine others after the deadline that wanted to get involved. Sometimes we struggle to even have eight [teams] so I think it’s great that we have this many teams. It shows that a lot of people want to be involved.”
Indeed. The tournament did involve many types of members in the community. There were teams composed of international students, American students, undergraduates, graduates, staff members and players from the women’s soccer team. However, this year’s trophy, again, went to the defending champion, Botamengo, a group of undergraduate and graduate students from all over the world.
Botamengo won three 25-minute games in Pool 1 to advance to the final four, and beat another international team, Carletto and Friends, 1-0, in the 30-minute championship match.
“This is our second year in a row winning this, so we are pretty pumped,” Schoonover said.
Two years in a row is hard enough, but winning a tournament without practicing is even more impressive.
“The last time I played soccer was the KICK Tournament last year,” the junior said. “Sometimes we just do pickup, but for the most part, it’s just this tournament.”
But the competition was far from mild. The field included former soccer players, Division I athletes and a few players from the women’s soccer team.
“The competition was really, really intense,” said senior Mckenzie Hill, a former captain of the women’s soccer team and a member of Pepperdine United in this event. “The first team we played against was in the final. They did very well. They were very competitive.”
This was her first time participating in the event because her spring season used to conflict with the schedule. But now that she is done with her collegiate career, she had a chance to just play soccer for fun.
“I’d been looking forward to this for two weeks because I hadn’t played soccer in four months since season ended,” the senior said. “So I was really excited to come out and just play for fun, even though I knew it was going to be very competitive.”
With an increasing popularity in international sporting events within the community, PIC is planning to add another tournament like this in the near future.
“We are towing around with the idea of table tennis, ping pong,” Guirguis said. “A lot of people have said, ‘Hey, we should have a ping pong tournament.’ So I’m definitely keeping that.”
Whatever the method, hosting sporting events seems to be an effective way for OISS to unite the Pepperdine community. Sure, all it takes is just one ball, right? Well, and maybe a couple of paddles.
04-10-2008