The greatest upset did not involve TKS per se, the U16 Boys SAIKAC champions, American School of Dammam BEAT their U19 boys’ team to meet us in the final. Everybody cheered the U16 team, the underdog, just because it was a great story unfolding. Amongst the colossal outpouring of emotion for the victors, a team from just north of Jeddah, like its namesake, were sharks circling, waiting for its next victim.
A huge thank you to the seniors: Alvin Huang, Bruno Parisi-Borelli, Khuslen Bambar, and Youssef Elhagrasy who had a vision and put in motion action in order to achieve the vision. The 6 students who had never played before but listened with the heart and followed great modeling and examples of excellence: Ahmad Alsharif, Andrew Auckland, Hannan Mohiuddin, Timo Sladakovic, William Norseth, Yousef AbdelAal.
After the initial nerves, TKS won the first set 25-23 and soared to victory with a 2nd and final set 25-13, the exact same score as when we first met the same U 16 team in the pool games. Finally, the TKS team won gold, and went through the tournament undefeated and with a team of which 60% had never played competitively before.
Finally, heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Francois de Ryckel who had been through it all over the last few years as an assistant coach during his time here at our wonderful school. Thank you for being the ‘heart’ of the team all these years.
It is prudent to say, however, that a team is only a champion for a day; the next day and thereafter until they win a championship again, they are defending champions. Needless to say, like a shark waiting and preying, plans to defend the title are already in place.
2022
here we come
!
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