No Rest For Old Puget Sound: `Beach' Boys Win 3Rd Rugby Title

Until Old Puget Sound Beach, no rugby club ever won two national seven-man championships.

After last weekend's tournament in Washington, D.C., the boys in maroon and gold became the first to win back-to-back titles in wrapping up their third crown in four tries.

How did this Seattle team get to be so good?

"It's just a unique blend of talent and good competition from British Columbia and a commitment to the game," team spokesman David Bruck said.

Last Saturday, the team advanced in round-robin play, beating three teams by a total score of 52-16, including two shutouts.

In Sunday's semifinal, Finau Puloka's score in sudden death lifted OPSB past a Monterey, Calif., team 16-12.

OPSB entered the final without Jim Burgett, injured in the semis, and Tony Ridnell, the 1990 most valuable player who missed the trip because of injury.

Still, OPSB beat Northern Virginia 28-6, behind Mike Telkamp's rare hat trick, to clinch the title.

Telkamp, 28, was named the tournament's most valuable player. He scored 57 points in five games.

Five OPSB players were named to the national team selection trials: David Bateman, George Foster, Burgett, Puloko and Telkamp.

The team, which also includes Ty Adams, Jon Knutson and Barry Saylor, gets no rest.

It is preparing for the 38-game, 15-man rugby season, which will kick off Sept. 7 with a game against its cross-town rival, the Seattle Rugby Club.

For information on local men's or women's rugby, call 523-2284.

-- GET LOST: The only thing better than getting lost in the forest with a compass is getting lost with another hiker with a map and compass.

Hence the sport of rogaine.

Call it team endurance orienteering. Teams of two or more will roam the wilds near White Pass with compass in hand, navigating around two-, four-hour or six-hour routes.

The object is to find as many of the 20 control points located in a 20-square-kilometer area, with a maximum elevation gain of 1,200 feet.

Teams strategize during the 5K hike to the starting point, deciding what control points to seek for the greatest number of points, in what order, and how to get there.

Partners must go together; the team with the most points wins.

Registration is from 8:30 to 10 a.m. at the summit parking lot. Cost is $10 per team. Instruction will be available for beginners.

For details on the rogaine or other local orienteering events, call the hotline at 783-3866.

-- GET IN LINE: Nearly 400 in-line skaters turned out Saturday for the Rollerblade Series race at Koll North Creek, a business park in Bothell.

Professional blader Eddy Matzger, 24, of Berkeley, Calif., averaged 22 mph on the 10-kilometer course, missing the world record of 16 minutes, 51 seconds, by 3.5 seconds.

Brian King, 28, of Puyallup was second by a half-second, finishing in 16:54.9; Seattle's John Svensson, 28, was clocked in 16:55.

The fastest woman was Puyallup's Vicci King, 19, edging pro skater Sheri Jones, 26, of Los Angeles 19:01.7 to 19:02.9.

The novice division had some racers that other competitors considered "ringers," people who were good enough to race in a faster class.

Collin Michael Steel, 17, of Tacoma, won in 20:20; Redmond's Angel Inouye, 25, was the fastest woman in 23:32.5.

-- SURF'S UP: A bunch of radical dudes - 52, in fact - competed in the Westport Surf Festival Saturday off of Westhaven Beach, with about 2,500 people watching the action.

Robert "Wingnut" Weaver, former world champion from Santa Cruz, Calif., won the open division, contested on long boards. The top Washington finisher was Westport's Tom Decker.

Jack Johnson, from Sunset Beach, Hawaii, won the high-school class.

-- NOTES: After placing sixth in the fifth race in the Champion International Whitewater Series in South Bend, Ind., last weekend, Poulsbo kayaker Scott Shipley finished fifth in the overall standings. -- Twelve of 16 climbers made it to the top of Mount Rainier last Wednesday, including KIRO's Steve Raible, whose television station will broadcast a documentary in October. The climb was led by Eric Simonson, an Eatonville resident who recently led nine climbers up Mount Everest.

The event was a fund-raiser for the Nisqually River Basin Land Trust, a non-profit group trying to buy land between the mountain and Puget Sound threatened by development. So far, $22,000 has been pledged, organizers said.