USA Sevens Team Named For New Zealand & USA Tourny

Press Release

San Diego-Following the week-long training assembly in San Diego, USA Sevens coach Al Caravelli has officially selected his team for the IRB World Sevens Series tournaments in Wellington and San Diego.

Looking to build on the success from the last IRB Sevens event in George, Caravelli has added three new players to the team who were not in invited to South Africa. Two of them – Matt Hawkins, a punishing forward from the OMBAC rugby club in San Diego, and Troy Hall, a fast and creative midfielder from White Plains, NY – will be marking their first time to the IRB tour.

The third addition is a welcomed one, as Jason Pye, of Park City Utah, makes his return to the team following his recovery from last year’s season-ending injury.

“Both Matt and Troy will be great additions to the team,” Caravelli said. “They both have excellent defensive skills and are extremely physical. As for Jason, he came into camp in amazing condition and with a new defensive vigor. You can really tell he put in a lot of time in the gym and track. I am very pleased to have Jason back with us.”

The rest of the squad left off right from George, making an immediate impact at the camp and each claiming their respective spots once again. The forwards are led by veteran and vice captain Todd Clever, of OMBAC, who was a pillar at the recent Rugby World Cup and the most capped sevens player on the squad. Clever is joined by Mark Bokhoven, of the Denver Barbarians, Thretton Palamo, of Barriatz, France, and James Gillenwater from Glasgow, KY.

The backs are led by captain Chris Wyles, also of OMBAC. Wyles was one of the most consistent players at the recent World Cup, and will lead the Eagles with a certain calmness and professionalism that everyone responds to. Rounding out the back line are Dallen Stanford (Belmont Tigers), P.J. Komongnan, (Radford University), Valenese Malifa (Belmont Shore) and Mike Palefau (Petrarca).

The training camp proved pretty demanding on Caravelli’s squad. Between skills work, sports psychology sessions, strength and conditioning training, and the yoga and Pilates workouts, there wasn’t a lot of downtime for the team before their scheduled departure for New Zealand, on Saturday.

“We are extremely grateful to all the support we had this week,” Caravelli said. “The time and energy that was spent working with our team on strength, conditioning, yoga and Pilates, was invaluable. “We also extend our gratitude to Biarritz and Petrarca for releasing Thretton and Mike to boost our squad. Unfortunately we lost two players to injuries, captain Riaan Hamilton and Nic Johnson, whom we hope will both have a speedy recovery so we can have them back in time for Hong Kong.”

USA Sevens squad for Wellington & San Diego: Mark Bokhoven, (Denver Barbarians); Todd Clever (OMBAC); James Gillenwater, At Large, Troy Hall (White Plains), Matt Hawkins (OMBAC), PJ Komongnan (Radford), Valenese Malifa (Belmont Shore), Thretton Palamo (Biarritz, France), Mike Palefau (Petrarca, Italy), Jason Pye (Park City Haggis), Dallen Stanford (Belmont Tigers), Chris Wyles (OMBAC)