College Latest: West Coast Roundup
College Latest: West Coast Roundup
Cal Poly followed up one big-scoring game with another as the Mustangs beat Santa Clara 78-21.
Led by another impressive showing from captain and inside center Coby Baker and hard running and strong defense from No. 8 Ryan Wenstrom, Cal Poly improved to 2-0 in the California Conference.
Due to heavy rains in California the game was unable to be played on Cal Poly's grass fields, but Santa Clara was able to host the game.
Cal State Long Beach and UCSB battled hard and it was fairly even for while before Long Beach pulled away 35-15.
"The boys jus fell off a few tackles and Long Beach were able to capitalize on it," said UCSB Head Coach Neil Foote. "The boys learned a lot from the match and what not getting our processes right means."
Cal won 66-12 over UCLA. Evan Weigold scored two tries in the second half for the Bears and Kealan O'Connell added 21 points with his boot in the victory. Pat Deely, Max Threlkeld, Rand Santos, Will Shankland, Brett Dowgiewicz, Solomon Williams, and Joe Kirsten all touched down for Cal.
That put Cal at 1-0 in the PAC Rugby Conference, while UCLA dropped to 1-1. Cal next faces BYU in Berkeley while UCLA next faces Grand Canyon in LA.
As for Grand Canyon, they beat Utah 50-5.
It took a while for the 'Lopes to get going. After a long period running their pattern and not really getting anywhere—thanks in part to some hard-working Utah defense. Finally a penalty for diving in the ruck gave GCU a front-foot opportunity and eventually some elusive running from wing Lewis Case put him over.
It was 7-0 but it had taken GCU almost 15 minutes to get there. The ‘Lopes came right back to attack off a scrum and sent it through the hands to put right wing Marcus Terzoli away.
Utah pushed into GCU territory after that but a knock-on and then a penalty set up a chance for the ‘Lopes to extend their lead. Once again they found an opportunity out wide, and an excellent catch-pass from fullback Luke Neely set up Terzoli's second in the corner. Doing a better job playing in Utah’s end, GCU scored their fourth try with an old-fashioned eight-man-shove; No. 8 Lachlan Jackson did the honors there.
In the second half a grubber from Ben Saunders set up center Hunter Finlay under the posts.
GCU continued from there. They tested the outside repeatedly, using Case as an everywhere attacker, and it was that, along with strong territorial kicking from Neely and Saunders, that saw them through. Terzoli ended with three tries.
