The first weekend of action in Northern California’s and meaningful wins and losses everywhere.

In the Club division (Varsity Gold), Danville, Granite Bay, Jesuit, Mother Lode, Sierra Foothills, North Bay, and Pleasanton all won 

Granite Bay impressed with a 60-17 defeat of CK McClatchy.

“We have a lot of talented players, which creates some good problems for the coaching staff,” said Granite Bay Head Coach Jason Devine. “We need to work on our tackling and our fitness and our ability to move the ball around the field. But overall we’ll take it as a first game.”

HS All American Chase Bixby was a big presence up front, while flyhalf Garrett Walker hd a very strong game. Walker set up several tries, many of which were finished off by center/wing Kwabena Akoto.”

Pleasanton, having moved up to the Gold Division, opened up with a victory over Lamorinda 32-10. Although it appears Lamo was missing some of their players, it was still a good start for the Cavaliers.

“We’re really happy with this weekend’s performance,” said Head Coach John Comiskey. “The boys were prepared and played the free-flowing rugby we implemented a couple of years ago.”

Comiskey said the program entered this season excited, but with a little trepidation.

“This is one of the toughest leagues in the country, and we have no illusions of how much work we have to do to be competitive,” he said.

Pleasanton prides themselves on their team-oriented play, and the scoring, as usually, was spread throughout the team.

“We have no real go-to guy,” said Comiskey, which is another way of saying, everyone is a go-to guy.

Meanwhile in a clash of teams with high aspirations on the league, Danville beat Peninsula Green 50-17. But Danville Head Coach John Straka said the game was much tougher than the score makes it look.

“It was very physical and not easy by any measurement,” said Straka. “But we had some line breaks and some nice work on the set piece.”

Keanu Andrade had another strong game for the Oaks, Nate Becker led the team in tackles by a wide margin, and Lopeti Liu seems to have his spot at blindside flanker. The kid from New Zealand is a huge athlete who actually played scrumhalf for Danville last year. Flanker seems to fit him better.

Sierra Foothills won comfortable over Cougar, while Jesuit had to test itself with a lineup missing players who were in fall sports.

“We put in a mixed team,” said Jesuit Coach John Shorey. “We were happy with what we saw from players we will need to fill in throughout the season.”

NorCal Boys Varsity Gold Scores