Navy Explodes Out of Hibernation with Win over Cal

02.22.2025College Men

Navy pulled off a bit of a surprise result Saturday.

It wasn't that they beat Cal in Annapolis—that was certainly in the cards. It was the manner of the victory. Navy won 27-3, getting two tries from Max Smith and one from Aidan Gerber, plus three conversions on two penalty goals on a perfect 5-for-5 day for fullback Roanin Krieger. But the story of the day was the defense. Handling two goalline stands—forcing lost balls each time—Navy held Cal to zero tries.

In the 505 15-a-side games for which Cal has online records, since the 1999-2000 season, Cal has been held tryless just five times. Every single time the team to accomplish that feat was University of British Columbia. The last time UBC held Cal tryless was March 5, 2017. The Bears went through 122 games since then scoring a try in each. At least since 2000, no US-based collegiate team has ever held Cal tryless until today—505 games, five tryless games against UBC, and one tryless game against Navy.

This is an astonishing accomplishment.

Cal won the toss and put Navy under pressure early, kicking a penalty to go up 3-0. But Navy is superb as controlling field position and bottling up teams in their own 22.

"The defensive effort was huge," said Navy DOR. "We played hard, were connected, and committed."

Their mistake cover was good too. Both teams made their handling errors but Navy did well to prevent Cal from taking advantage.

Still navy wasn't doing much offensively, and Cal carried their 3-0 lead into halftime.

As he is wont to do, Hickie ran on front row replacements early in the game, at the 30-minute mark. How Hickie uses his bench and adjusts minutes is something he says more teams will start doing. But right now it can change the pace of the game. Certainly in the second half Navy was more on the front foot. They got a Krieger penalty to tie it up and then about 56 minutes in Krieger set up Smith for the wing's first of the day.

It was a good finish, and when Krieger added the extras the 10-3 lead looked huge. Moments later Ed Soeder snagged the ball and that set up Gerber's try to make it 17-3. Cal was chasing now and just couldn't break out. Krieger added a penalty, and with time winding down Smith raced in for his second.

"Huge tip of the cap to Cal for coming out after a bruising weekend, two games, including UBC, and a short turnaround to fly out and play us," said Hickie. "They were without a couple of players and we really appreciate them coming out. We were able to maintain possession and certainly I think we finished strong."

Cal not scoring on their two prime chances didn't help them.

For Navy, along with Smith and Krieger, and the entire defense, Tanner Russell was huge for the Mids, putting in one of his best performances.

Next up for Navy is Penn State. Cal, meanwhile, takes a week off before traveling to BYU. After that they host Army and then Saint Mary's.

Is this an indication of a balance of power shift between West Coast and East Coast? Yes and no. That balance of power has been shifting for some time now, going from heavily West to more equal between the two. Certainly the arguments that you can't jump out of winter and perform; that you can't open your winter/spring campaign against top West Coast sides and expect to win; that you can't even think of any of that with just American players, has been exposed as wrong-thinking.

Whatever teams from the East say, planning and preparation and a commitment to compete at the highest level can indeed brak new ground.