U. San Diego Wins Two Major Championships in Two Weeks
U. San Diego Wins Two Major Championships in Two Weeks
University of San Diego defeated Iowa State 41-19 last Saturday to win the ACR DIAA championship.
This was the culmination of playoffs between Heart of America (Iowa State champs), Lonestar (Sam Houston State), Gold Coast (USD), and NCRC (Western Washington).
It was a windy day and the Toreros chose to play with the wind in the first half. That way Michael Lewis could use his boot to keep the ball in Iowa State's 22.
That worked very nicely and from a USD scrum Paul Habeeb set up wing Nate Leff, who did the rest to score in the corner.
No. 8 Michal Ramos helped punish a ISU clearance kick that was knocked down by the wind, charging through tacklers on to the tryline. He was stopped but by a no-wra[ tackle—yellow card and a penalty, after which Seni Fagbeni tapped quickly and was over. Lewis converted and it was 12-0.
Iowa State started to work their way back into the game and the forwards started to make inroads. But USD turned the tables on them. A high ball that looked promising for the Cyclones ended up caught by USD wing Jackson Short, who had leaped high to take it. He was unmarked and ran 90 meters to score.
Leff added another a few minutes later thanks to a nice pass from Dan Suhr, and San Diego led 24-0.
Iowa State had chances and were right down to the USD goalline only to lose the ball—it was that kind of day for them. Lewis fed Habeeb after that turnover and Habeeb raced to the ISU 22 before offloading to Devin Hoovel to complete the try.
Finally Iowa State was able to score through a maul which led to a penalty try; Lewis added a penalty goal for USD and it was 34-7 at halftime.
The second half saw the scoring slow down as San Diego was in control by then. Ramos went over and ISU got two to finish it off 41-19.
Unity and a Quick Turnaround as USD Wins CRC
For U. San Diego it was a wild week since they had just won the CRC 7s the week before. Bouncing between 15s and 7s isn't always easy. Leff was named the game's MVP but it was a massive team effort. Habeeb always seems to come up big in big games, and Ramos has been a huge part of USD's success these last couple of years.
