Saint Mary's Over GCU; Fires Cancel Storer
Saint Mary's Over GCU; Fires Cancel Storer
Saint Mary's defeated Grand Canyon Saturday in an early-January D1A meeting.
The Gaels won comfortably, 92-3. It's a bit of a rebuilding time for both teams as they came in pretty young. But Saint Mary's obviously has a bit more depth with which to work.
Certainly Gaels Head Coach Tim O'Brien, who graduated 8 starters from last year's D1A championship team, six of which were drafted into the MLR, expects to see some growth.
"We had moments of brilliance combined with more moments of poor decision-making than need to be," O'Brien told GRR. "That said, this is a pretty joyful work in progress."
Saint Mary's played and beat Life West last week before a large number of their players suited up the next day for the California Conference North, which lost to the South.
This week's game was the only action of the weekend, but next week things heat up a bit.
Saint Mary's is at Arizona. Central Washington hosts University of British Columbia (who also fields a XV against Western Washington). UC Santa Cruz is scheduled against UC Davis. Claremont Colleges is at San Diego State.
But the big event this time of year is the annual Dennis Storer Classic at UCLA. But that tournament has had to be canceled. Air quality, the potential for more fires if the Santa Ana Winds (as predicted) pick up again, and the resources the visiting of several rugby teams will require. So the tournament is off. UCLA Head Coach Harry Bennett thanked the coaches who have been enormously understanding and showed a lot of concern for the teams affected by the fires.
Cal Poly and Cal were scheduled to play at the Storer Classic. Now they will play each other in San Luis Obispo. While Cal would be favored in this game, the Mustangs have an experienced team with some players, notably center Coby Baker and No. 8 Ryan Wenstrom, in solid form.
