Cal Beats Saint Mary's in National Rugby Semifinals

Cal advanced to the title match of the D1A national rugby championships by beating East Bay rival Saint Mary’s 38-27 in a semifinal match at sold-out Cal Witter Rugby Field on Saturday afternoon.

The Golden Bears (13-1) will play for the national championship on May 3 in Indianapolis where they will face Life University, which dominated the second half of its 31-7 victory over Lindenwood in the other semifinal match on Saturday.

Life is ranked No. 1 in the country by Goff Rugby Report and No. 2 by RugbyHawks. The Golden Bears are No. 4 in both rankings.

Cal got to the national title game in 2023, but has not won the College Rugby Association of America national championship since 2011. (Cal did win the 2017 Varsity Cup, which was a postseason tournament for a national championship.)

Saint Mary’s won the national championship last year, beating Cal in the quarterfinal along the way. But Cal never trailed in Saturday’s match while defeating the Gaels for the second time this season.

Cal had to hang on to beat Saint Mary’s 48-45 in a back-and-forth struggle in both teams’ final regular season game back on March 22. But the Golden Bears controlled play in the national semifinals on Saturday.

Masi Koi scored two tries for Cal, although much of Cal’s success came from the all-around play of Solomon Williams. It was Williams’ try with about 16 minutes left in the game that gave the Bears a 38-15 lead and virtually clinched the victory.

Williams’ score was one of two tries Cal scored while being a man down following a yellow card. In fact, Cal played a man down on three occasions Saturday, but the Bears more than held their own in those situations.

The Bears took an early lead when Hugo Schreuder powered across for a try that, with Filip Edstrom’s conversion, gave Cal a 7-0 lead 13 minutes into the game.

A converted penalty kick by Saint Mary’s Oliver Cline closed the margin to 7-3, but Joe Kirsten scored a try for Cal to make the score 14-3.

Dom Besag scored a try for the Gaels to make the score 14-8 with 10 minutes left in the half, but a Koi try with less than seven minutes remaining gave the Bears a 21-8 halftime lead.

Playing a man down to start the second half, Rand Santos scored a try just two minutes after halftime to extend the Bears’ lead 28-8, and eight minutes later Koi scored to give the Bears a comfortable 33-8 advantage with 30 minutes left.

The Gaels scored to close the gap to 33-15, but Cal virtually salted the game away on a long play that ended with Williams covering the final 30 meters for a try that gave the Bears a 38-15 advantage with about 16 minutes remaining.

Saint Mary’s scored the final two tries, the second one coming with no time left on the clock.

So it will be Cal heading to Indianapolis to face Life, a team Cal did not face during the regular season.

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