Cal Rugby: Bears Roll Past Cal Poly in Postseason Opener

Cal returned to its winning ways on Saturday afternoon as the third-seeded Golden Bears dominated sixth-seeded Cal Poly 82-15 at Cal's Witter Field in a first-round match of the Division IA National Collegiate Rugby Championships.

Cal (11-3) had lost its final three matches of the regular season, but that is forgotten now that the Golden Bears have entered single-elimination play in pursuit of a national championship.

The challenge gets much stiffer next weekend, when Cal faces second-seeded Saint Mary's on the Gaels' homefield in Moraga. Saint Mary's defeated Cal 38-34 on the Golden Bears' home field back on March 25.

If the Golden Bears win next week's match against the Gaels, they would face the winner of the other West Region semifinals between fourth-seeded BYU and top-seeded Central Washington. BYU earned a berth in the second round by beating Arizona 71-34.

The winner of the West Region will face the winner of the East Region in the national championship game in Houston on May 6.

The East Region semifinals will feature top-ranked Navy against defending national champion Army and Life University against second-seeded Lindenwood.

Cal controlled Saturday's match from the start. Max Clark scored the first of his two first-half tries early in the first half to give the Bears a 5-0 lead. A Cal Poly penalty kick closed the gap to 5-3 about 10 minutes into the game, but the Bears began to pull away at that point.

Consecutive Cal tries by Alex Aguero, Tom Dixon, Rand Santos, Joe Kirsten and Clark gave Cal a 36-3 lead at halftime.

Cal increased its lead to 53-3 early in the second half, as both teams began substituting liberally. Virtually all the Cal starters were out of the game midway through the second half.

It was an impressive showing for Cal, which lost to Navy, Saint Mary's and BYU in its final three regular-season matches. However, the loss to BYU should have an asterisk because postseason seedings and pairings had already been announced before that match. As a result, Cal put a reserve team on the field against BYU, with all the frontline players resting to be ready for the postseason.

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