California Conference
Sacramento State upset UC Santa Cruz with a last-second try and conversion to win 36-34. Bryn Jones converted three and scored a try for the Hornets. Trent Miller's late try put them through. For UCSC, Reese Hyduk slotted a rare drop goal on a 14-point day.
Another team that might not have been favored, necessarily, was San Diego State. They also won a close one, taking UC Davis 38-31.
Cal Poly’s offense continued to click behind braces from Thomas Hartanov, Troy Fletcher, and Jack Hodge, as they beat Santa Clara 74-21.
These results put Cal Poly atop the California Conference Southern with a 4-0 record and 20 standings points. UCLA is 4-0 but has fewer bonus points.
San Diego, UCSB, and SD State not all have one win.
In the Northern, Saint Mary’s still leads, and now we have all four other teams, UC Davis, UCSC, Santa Clara, and Sac State, with one win.
We still have two games in the conference this weekend, with UCSB vs Cal State Long Beach, and UC Davis completing their San Diego trip with a game against University of San Diego.
We talk about close-loss bonus points, and the California does have those, with three close losses and a trie in 20 games, which is not astonishing, but isn’t bad (20% of games within a try). However, we also know there’ve been a few, certainly too many, blowouts.
We don’t talk as often about four-try bonus points, but, boy does the California Conference get a lot of those. By our count there have been 40 opportunities for a four-try bonus point, and teams have achieved them 26 times.
