Cal was the only undefeated team after Day One of the PAC Rugby Conference 7s, as the Bears swept Pool A and Pool B came down, as predicted, to having three teams tied at 2-1.

Cal opened up their day, and in fact the day for everyone, with a fairly workmanlike 24-5 win over Oregon. the bears then rolled over Colorado 41-0 and faced 2-0 Arizona State in the third game of the day. Arizona State was impressive, and scored three tries on Cal. The Bears, however, scored five, and won 34-19.

Cal's Russell Webb said his team wasn't perfect, but got the job done. "The most important thing is we are 3-0," said Webb. "With the quality of competition we faced, like ASU, you've got to win those games. We pulled through. "It's all about building on each performance, and I think we did that. To put 28 unanswered points on ASU shows the character we have on our squad. We're going to keep working hard."

For Arizona State 7s Coach Ian Gregor, it was, overall, a good day.

"The guys were really excited to compete as well as they did against Cal," said Gregor. "We worked hard to get a lot of players playing time. That was important. Overall, we had some good moments."

DaVaughn Foster had an especially good day for ASU, and combined nicely with captain Alex Sandstrom, while youngsters Alex Walsh and Nate Short showed well.

In Pool B, UCLA opened the day with a 39-0 shutout of Stanford, and Arizona put everyone notice with a 12-5 defeat of Utah. But in the second round of games, the pool was put on its head. Arizona won, but a relatively small 15-0 margin of victory would eventually be their undoing, as the young Wildcats team learned something about the need to be ruthless. Meanwhile, Utah took control of the game against UCLA, and won 19-7.

"We're not a fast team," said Utah Head 7s Coach Mark Drown. "We don't have a burner. So we control the ball and we control the tempo and we control the clock. Those are the things we can control."

That worked very nicely against UCLA. In the final round of games, the Bruins rebounded with a 12-10 win over Arizona - the difference being just one conversion. That put UCLA at 2-1 with a points difference of +29, and Arizona at 2-1 and +20. Utah entered their game against Stanford at 1-1 with a points difference of +5. They needed to win by 16 to bypass Arizona, and by 24 to bypass UCLA.

"Against Stanford we needed to get out of our game plan," said Drown. "We rushed everything. We couldn't go from side to side and work our way down the field. We needed to make line breaks. We did that, and we rushed the kicks and ran back to halfway."

Up 27-0, Utah was in position to win the pool, but a penalty led to Stanford scoring a try and putting Utah back behind UCLA on points difference. The Utes scored one more late to win 34-5 and win the pool. (Arizona was 3rd on points difference, and then Utah beat UCLA head-to-head).

Utah will face a very tough Arizona State team that has beaten the Utes three times in a row in 7s. 

"We have to play flawlessly to beat them," said Drown.

Meanwhile, while Arizona was disappointed not to make the Cup Round, Head Coach Sean Duffy said his young team learned a lot, and will be shooting for the Bowl. Duffy was also the tournament director, and ran an event with high school and youth teams. All teams got to play on excellent fields and use locker rooms.

"It's gone very well," said Duffy.

Scores and Pool Standings

Saturday Scores:
Time Match #        Teams            Pool         Score       
1100     1         California v Oregon  A         24-5
1120     2         ASU v Colorado       A         24-5
1140     3         UCLA v Stanford      B         39-0
1200     4         Arizona v Utah         B        12-5
1230     5         Colorado v California   A    0-41
1250     6         ASU v Oregon         A        25-10
1310     7         Utah v UCLA           B       19-7
1330     8         Arizona v Stanford  B         15-0
1400     9         California v ASU     A         34-19
1420     10         Oregon v Colorado   A     10-38
1440     11         UCLA v Arizona         B     12-10
1500     12         Stanford v Utah         B      5-34

Sunday Schedule:
Time Match #        Matchup                    
1100 13         Oregon v Arizona - Bowl SF
1120 14         Colorado v Stanford - Bowl SF
1205 15         Cal v UCLA - Cup SF
1225 16         Utah v Arizona State - Cup SF 
1245 17         L13 v L14 7th/8th Game
1305 18         W13 v W14 5th/6th Game
1325 19         L15 v L16 3rd/4th Game
1345 20         W15 v W16 Cup Final