San Jose State remains atop the California D1AA North conference after a very convincing 72-3 victory over San Francisco State.

The Spartans ran in 12 tries but it took some work as SFSU battled hard throughout the game as they continue to take forward steps. SJSU started off hot but was able to also maintain a good rhythm. Several of their tries were the result of the Spartans running their pattern effectively, opening up space and leading to them scoring from long range.

The San Jose State scrum was very good and lineouts much improved, but there were still some errors in open play.

Center CJ Latimer ran in two of those long-range tries and scored another to secure his hat trick. He was named Man of the Match. Miguel Galan ran the tempo nicely at scrumhalf anf scored a nice try off the back of the scrum, selling a dummy and scampering in.

San Jose State is now 4-0 in the league with bonus points in all four games. 

Also 4-0 is American River College, and while they have played well, it's important to remember that one of those games was a forfeit with Stanford, a game that was actually played and which Stanford won. Still, ARC has impressed and this weekend beat a solid Chico State squad 29-10. Brandon Waller and Tevita Vaea continued their try-scoring in the game.

The only team close to these two is Fresno State, which beat Stanford 52-38 over the weekend. Theodore Williams scored three tries ad Mikanen Guevara scored two in that game and the Bulldogs are now 3-1 (having lost to Chico State) with San Jose State on the slate next week. ARC is at Fresno State a week later. Those two games are massive for a Fresno State team that could certainly challenge for the conference title regardless of the loss to the CSU Wildcats.

This conference will have a semifinal-final playoff at the end of March before the regionals in April.

Meanwhile, in the South, it's all about University of San Diego, which finally got on the field for a conference game and beat Arizona State 48-14. It wasn't that easy as ASU led 14-12 at halftime. USD opened the scoring with a hard run from hooker Logan Tatum taking him in from short range. ASU responded and wing Cooper Baines took a handoff off the deck to snipe in. USD retook the lead after a audacious dummy and try from flyhalf Michael Lewis, but just before halftime a nice kick ahead from scrumhalf Jacob Hurl and a big run from flanker Pearse McNamara set the stage for forward Will Quinn to crash over.

But the second half was San Diego's as they came out to control field position and ball possession. Tatum broke off the back of a maul to get USD close and No. 8 Josh Butler ran to the line a bit high but was able to wriggle his way down to apply downward pressure. The Toreros punished a poor clearance kick to put wing Nate Leff over a couple of minutes later and while it remained 26-14 into the fourth quarter of the game, wing Jackson Short's long run into the corner kind of sealed it.

Tries from flanker Sam Carlson (a really hard-charging run), fullback Devin Hoovel, and, finally, loose forward Dylan Joven finished it off.

USD has Arizona State and Claremont Colleges on the slate once more but they look in good shape to win the California South. 

What All Of That Means

There will be a four-team Western Regional playoff in Mid-April with the top NCRC team (likely Western Washington), the top California North team (to be decided), and the top California South team (likely USD). There will also be an at-large bid, which will almost certainly be either the #2 team from the California North, or the #2 team from the Northwest. Our money is on the former.

The winner of that two-game regional will play the winner of the Eastern Regional involving the Lonestar and HOA teams in Houston as part of the CRAA championship weekend May 4-5. That weekend will be shown live on The Rugby Network.