Saint Mary’s broke open a close, back-and-forth game to score four tries in the final 24 minutes and beat BYU 60-28 Saturday in Moraga, Caif.
This was a hard, physically difficult match; SMC suffered a couple of injuries during game and BYU came into the game carrying injuries—reigning Rudy Scholz Award winner Wyatt Parry is out at the moment. But the game was one of the most fast-paced and enjoyable to watch so far this calendar year.
Within the first 10 minutes Saint Mary’s saw inside center Sosaia Pongi, who has been in strong form this year, leave with a worrying injury, and they brought in Ollie Cline at center to replace him. Cline, a USA U20 and a transfer from Central Washington, slotted in fairly naturally at center, however, but Pongi’s loss will be felt.
Saint Mary’s got on the scored board early. The forwards bashed hard against the tryline and then flyhalf Dom Besag went right over a defender to score. Cline stepped in as the goalkicker and nailed the conversion for a 7-0 lead.
The Gaels then punished a penalty at about halfway with a kick for touch and lineout. They mauled it and then sent the ball to Besag who passed off to scrumhalf Hunter Modlin; he launched a high kick to the right wing where Siale Ofa caught it on the fly, and stepped in to score. That made it 12-0. BYU worked their way down into the Saint Mary’s 22 but a mittimed lineout allowed the Gaels to get possession and and a rather wild pass was picked up by Ofa. He curved around to the left, broke a tackle, and raced up the sideline. Just inside the BYU half he launched a kick down the sideline.
The ball looked like it would roll to touch-in-goal, but fullback Mario Storti outpaced everyone to dive onto the ball just before it rolled dead. That was a startling try and made it 17-0.
BYU Responds
BYU was not too far out of it and flyhalf Zach Maughan illustrated that, selling a huge dummy and bursting through to score from long range. He capped off that outstanding effort with the conversion and it was 17-7. SMC’s Cline answered with a penalty goal.
Saint Mary’s looked to press their advantage using No. 8 King Matu’s strong running and the Gaels put together one of their better sequences of phase play. They stretched the BYU defense enough and finally Matu thundered over.
BYU answered. They got a penalty and another near the tryline. Opting for the tap move, they ran prop James Tenney into the defense and then his front row mate Talavou Fitisemanu picked up and scored. Maughan was good on the kick and it was 25-14 at halftime.
That was a key try for the Cougars, and they followed that up with good pressure off the second-half kickoff, some hard runs at the tryline before a wider pass to flanker Ben Austin for the try. The key play here was No. 8 Brook Vaitohi breaking off the back of a maul at midfield and galloping about 45 meters. During that play he broke through an attempted tackle by Cline—the new Gael paid for it and eventually had to leave the field with what appeared to be an arm or shoulder injury.
Now it was 25-21 and we were well and truly in a game. Saint Mary’s answered. With their line threatened, BYU got into further trouble when prop Tenney was sin-binned for some silly off-the-ball stuff. Up a man the Gaels looked for the space and a nice, flat pass from Besag put Storti through.
With USA player Besag garnering a lot of attention from the BYU defense, he was content to find his runners—something he wasn’t doing as much earlier when in the season. The Gaels’ brought in scrumhalf Hunter Modlin as the goalkicker and he converted.
Now it was 32-21 but BYU was right back at it. They got over the line and lost the ball forward, but it worked out for the Cougars. Saint Mary’s tried to run the forward pods to set up a clearance kick but a tackle and poach forced a penalty and the Cougars tapped it with their forwards and bulled right over.
Maughan converted and now it was 32-28 with about 27 minutes to go. After that, however, Saint Mary’s started to take the control. A Gaels’ mistake in their 22 had closed the gap and mistakes in the BYU half would open that gap a bit more later on.
