Cal Poly Humboldt Celebrates 50th, Chases Repeat?

10.02.2023College Men

Cal Poly Humboldt celebrated its 50th anniversary over the weekend, welcoming alumni from every decade of their existence, and honoring their past.

The alumni embraced the event, playing in a game before the existing team took the field for the first time, and also opening their wallets to support the current team and create a scholarship fund for both male and female players that was named after longtime coach Chris Byrne.

But the key event was Humboldt’s opening game of the season. The team had graduated some key performers, including forward Justin Celotto and flyhalf Dante Cappellano, so this was an important game to see where the defending national small-college champs were at the beginning of the year.

Humboldt hosted Nevada Reno in a non-league game to kick it all off. Perhaps the perfect score might have been 50-0 to commemorate the anniversary, but no—Nevada battled too hard to let that happen and they scored late to make it 55-7.

Humboldt began with good continuity, working the phases and trying to go wide. The game itself was played at the Redwood Bowl at Humboldt, which is not the team’s regular venue. This was the football stadium, which could accommodate the crowd of several hundred, but also the field was more narrow than teams were used to. So, yes, they wanted to unleash Brian Wright on the edge, but that had to wait.

Ongoing pressure did result in a penalty for Humboldt and they took a lineout and maul, with prop Isaac Khelo powering over after seven minutes.

Nevada managed to stay out of too much trouble thanks to some dogged defensive effort from Nevada and some good kicking.

But eventually Humboldt charged back on a kick with Khelo thundering through and offloading to fellow front-rower Logan Zampa, who stretched over.

So two tries, both from the front row.

The Lumberjacks got another one that was a little fortunate. A wide kick for Wright got them going forward, and then a kick ahead bounced a little awkwardly, allowing Khelo to charge in and touch it down.

The forwards bashed over another after a couple of kick charge-downs, and the Lumberjacks were in control. Leading the way of course was No. 8 Latu Kolopeaua, who is a force with the ball, a punishing tackler, and the emotional leader of the team. It is he who settles down over-anxious players, and it is he who leads by example.

In the second half, it took about 10 minutes for the Lumberjacks to score. They stole a Nevada scrum put-in and surged on before Khelo got his third. They made it an all-front-row-scoring day after that, working a well-taken team try off a quick tap with good ball handling set hooker Nathan Schwartz, in his first game in the #2 jersey, zipped his way through to make it 38-0.

A brilliant run from center Deshawn Ellis set up the next one, and then a rollicking run from Schwartz made it 50-0.

One more try from Humboldt and a well-taken interception try from Nevada ended it.

For Reno this was a good runout for a team that played exactly one rugby game last year and is coming along. For Cal Poly Humboldt, this was a bit of a marker. The front row scored six tries, several of them quite spectacular. Their continuity was solid, and Head Coach Greg Pargee should feel fairly good about not only the players he has, but how the pieces are fitting together.

In the Small College division, Humboldt remains a strong national contender, and with this being their 50th year, they are nicely-primed to repeat. But it won’t be easy. Babson, Christendom, Furman, and US Eau-Claire, and Wayne State all recorded impressive over the weekend and look very strong. But with more depth, plenty of speed out wide, a solid team culture, and the most mobile front row in the small-college game, don’t count out the birthday boys.

Cal Poly Humboldt, Small Colleges

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