Some Big Scores in D1A Western Bracket

The Saint Mary's Gaels raced past Grand Canyon 78-7. Details to come. The game began with a long, weaving run from Mario Storti that almost produced a try from 80 meters out. He was finally dragged down only for the ball to later be spilled. Saint Mary's, however, is very good at shrugging off little issues like that, and they did. Still GCU went on the front foot after that and almost scored when Juan Feland raced won the sideline and popped a chip. But the kick was blocked. The 'Lopes kept up the pressure, however, almost got over the time, and, finally, Lachlan Jackson picked up from the ruck and shouldered away two to score, giving GCU an early 7-0 lead. Not long after GCU had a breakaway and a clear two-on-one, but didn't pass it. The Saint Mary's cover defense forced a knock-on and GCU had a very harsh lesson. GCU continued to pressure and looked set to mount a counter-attack off a kick, but fumbled the ball. As they do Saint Mary's shipped the ball quickly to an open player and flanker Sione Ofa then took off to score under the posts. The Gaels started flinging the ball around a bit and GCU had to scramble. Interestingly, though, it was when the Gaels fell back into their regular attacking shape that the next try came, Ofa taking a nice tips pass from prop John Wilson and striding through from 22 meters out. A turnover at the GCU 22 led to quick hands out to wing Tatum Pappas for the third Gaels try. Right from the restart, an impressive team movement was capped off by wing Jake Negrete, and it was 24-7 35 minutes in. GCU also got a yellow card for some silly after-try snarking and that didn't help them at all. Saint Mary's capped off the half with some simple, but effective work off the scrum and the Storti brothers working together with Eric setting up Mario for the try out wide. Conversion good and it was 31-7. Still time for one more. A chip ahead for Pappas almost produced a try, but from the resulting scrum it was out to Mario Storti again—this time he was picked out with a perfect pass from Inoke Waqavesi and had no one guarding him. 38-7 at halftime. The Gaels cruised from there. GCU had to rue their lost chances early, but chasing that quick-moving ball, especially shorthanded, wasn't easy—especially when the same player who got the yellow for a dead-ball incident did it again ... a second yellow for flanker Nigel Johnson and a resulting red card. King Matu, Wilson, Cathal Coakley, Nate Deegan, Ethan Younger, and Cade Lujan all touched down, and Mario Storti converted five in the second half and recorded a total of nine' with his two tries that logged the fullback 28. Full Game Here>> BYU defeated UCLA 48-15 to move on. Playing in Provo on Friday, the Cougars got two tries each from Tayson Hammer and Wyatt Parry, as well as tries from Lilo Clark, John Campbell, and Zeb Mendenhall. Hammer added five conversions and a penalty for a personal haul of 23.  This game was close than the final score makes it appear, at least through the first quarter of the game. A big run from Cade Carter and a conversion and penalty from Josh Cox game them 10 points to BYU's 14 at 20 minutes. The try, in fact, staked UCLA to a 7-0 lead before a series of hard pick-and-goes led to Clark going over under the posts. Moments later a break and quick ball led to Parry feeding Campbell with an excellent offload. Another snappy Parry offload put Hammer over. That made it 21-10 but that wasn't a massive lead at all. BYU's try from Mendenhall, set up by Parry again, made it a three-score game with a few minutes left in the first half. BYU would score just one in the the next 20 minutes but still the Cougars controlled field position. Certainly it seemed as if BYU was able to avoid too many momentum-killing penalties. Late in the game UCLA did punish a BYU penalty with a lineout and maul and hooker Sam McMillan doing the honors. All-in-all a fairly impressive showing for BYU. So the Western Bracket quarterfinals will be: Cal at Saint Mary's BYU at Central Washington