Bears, Gaels, Lopes, Wildcats All Log College Wins
Bears, Gaels, Lopes, Wildcats All Log College Wins
Cal, Grand Canyon, Saint Mary's, and Central Washington all logged impressive victories over the weekend.
Saint Mary's won their California Collegiate Conference clash with Cal Poly 85-7. Led by tighthead prop Joe Marchant (whose brother, Jack, was Cal Poly's flyhalf), the Gaels forward pack continues to put in plenty of work; King Matu is making inroads at No. 8 and he is joined by Ronnie McElligott and Kaipono Kayoshi in a really effective back row. Their young-old midfield of Dom Besag and Erich Storti is tough to contain.
In a bit of an upset Central Washington beat University of British Columbia 32-17 a week after UBC had beaten Saint Mary's.
"I'm happy to see the guys not back down to a huge challenge and fight through a ton of adversity today," said CWU Head Coach Todd Thornley. "We were far from perfect but we hung tough and got the job done against a very good UBC side today.
Calvin Liulamaga, Tiai Vavao, Albert O'Shannessey, and Campbell Robb all touched down for the Wildcats with Jac Tregoning kicking two penalties and a conversion; Oliver Cline slotted two conversions.
"CWU controlled possession early on and were sooner going to die than give it up," said UBC Head Coach Curry Hitchborn. "They beat us at all the contact points. Todd is an absolute beauty—easy man to respect. All in all, from a UBC perspective, we need more games against American universities."
Saint Mary's and Central Washington, said Hitchborn, "are two of the best teams we’ve faced all year."
Grand Canyon defeated UCLA 24-14 in Arizona.
Head Coach Sean O'Leary was very happy with the result and put the credit with the forwards.
"It's obviously so great to have UCLA on campus and we knew we were in for a dogfight," said O'Leary. "Our scrum we well and it's a great start for our young team."
Out of the 23 Grand Canyon starters, 14 are freshmen or sophomores.
Cal defeated Santa Clara in convincing fashion 79-3.
Cal started seven freshmen and six sophomores against their Northern California rivals; Joe Kirsten, Max Threlkeld, JP Vinter, and Dom Paga all scored twice.
Oliver Newall and Dougie Brown also scored tries in the first half while Kealan O’Connell converted five on his way to a 7-for-8 day.
In the second half Josh Mao, Michael Freeman, and Michal De Beer also found the line. Paga's two late tries were very different from each other, one a long breakaway and the other off a maul.
It was a fairly clinical win for a young Cal side.
