SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. – Cal won the first major college 7s tournament of the season on the West Coast, with both its teams going 8-0 at the West Coast 7s event hosted by Cal Poly.

"As I said in the preview, we were ready for some competition lessons and I think we now have a host of things to work on and improve," Head Coach Jack Clark said. "This said, Tom and I are really proud of the boys. To a man, they worked hard and had a real competitive spirit. It's only one tournament, but it's a good start and importantly, we can build from this point forward."
 
Starting out with two pools of four teams each, Cal's squads combined to go 6-0 to claim the top seed in their respective pools, defeating Long Beach State, Fresno State, UCLA, Arizona, Cal Poly and UC Santa Barbara. Then, in the first semifinal, the Bears took down Arizona 19-12 before defeating UCLA 27-21 in the following semifinal match. As a result, both Cal teams were scheduled to face each other in the Cup Final. There was no need to play that final seeing as Cal would have won regardless. This is the fifth time that Cal has won this tournament, previously taking home the title in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.

"It was good to get out with the boys and have a fun day," fifth year Kevin Saunders said. "The whole week, we've focused on playing unselfishly and thinking about the betterment of the team. We did a good job increasing our performance throughout the day, but looking ahead, we need to fine tune our game management and button down our skills overall."

All 29 players who traveled to San Luis Obispo received playing time on Saturday and collectively, Cal outscored its opponents 179-93 thanks to 29 tries from 17 different players. Junior Max Clark led the Bears with five scores on the day.
 
Freshman Kealan O'Connell was one of 10 underclassmen to make their 7s debut in the blue and gold. The SFGG product, who is one of several Cal players who GRR featured as high-schoolers, score three tries and started in three of his team's four games.

"It was all nerves on the bus on the way here," freshman Kealan O'Connell said, reflecting on his first tournament as a Golden Bear. "We had a lot of new guys coming into this tournament who hadn't played sevens all together, but we've been practicing together for weeks now and getting to know each other which I think helped us win some of those close games. Now, we have to keep pushing each other and continuing to get better as we focus on the PAC Rugby 7s Championship next month."
 
Cal will now turn its focus to the PAC Rugby 7s Championship, an eight-team tournament which it will host at Witter Rugby Field November 6-7.
 
Despite the fact that Cal went unbeaten in this tournament, the event was competitive. Of the eight games Cal won, five were within a try, and two others were within two tries. Only one game could be considered a runaway, while they had to come from behind twice and were tied at halftime in another game.

Cal Scores:
Cal 21, Long Beach State 12
Tries: Shankland, Salter, Penalty Try
Convs: Puckett, Penalty Try

Cal 19, Fresno State 12
Tries: Clark, Liebowitz, Bloom
Convs: Walsh 

Cal 19, UCLA 12
Tries: Fell, Salter 2
Convs: O'Connell

Cal 19, Arizona 7
Tries: Saunders, Walsh, Brundage
Convs: Poon, Brundage

Cal 19, Cal Poly 17
Tries: O'Connell 2, Casey
Convs: Salter, Casey

Cal 36, UC Santa Barbara 0
Tries: Clark 2, Schumacher, Zylstra, Broekhuizen, Liebowitz
Convs: Schumacher 2, Clark

Cal 19, Arizona 12 (Semifinal)
Tries: Casey, Snipes, O'Connell
Convs: Salter 2

Cal 27, UCLA 21 (Semifinal)
Tries: Zylstra, Clark 2, Purdey, Beaubelle
Convs: Walsh

—Cal Release plus additional reporting