Cal Rally Falls Short in Semifinal Rugby Loss to Saint Mary's

Cal mounted a strong comeback effort but it was not enough to overcome a slow start as the Golden Bears lost to Saint Mary's 35-26 in the West region semifinal rugby match Saturday afternoon at Witter Field in Berkeley.

It was the first loss of the season for No. 1-ranked Cal (13-1), which had defeated Saint Mary's 31-24 in the final regular-season game at Witter Field four weeks ago.

But in the more important game on Saturday, the Gaels raced out to an early 28-0 lead and held on to earn a berth in the national championship game next Saturday in Houston against Army, which defeated Lindenwood 19-14 in the East semifinal contest.

Cal got as close as 28-26 midway through the second half as the Cal portion of the standing-room-only crowd became engaged, but the Bears never could quite catch up.

"Oh man, I'm disappointed for our boys, it was the wrong day to have a poor start" head coach Jack Clark said on the Cal website. "We had the belief that we could climb back into the match at halftime and at 26-28 we had done just that; however, we just dug too deep of a hole in the first half. Credit to Saint Mary's for their performance. It is great that Army is in the final, it should be a good rugby match."

No. 2-ranked Saint Mary's jumped on top early as Edward King scored the first of his three tries less than two minutes into the contest, and Karl Keane made the first of his five conversions to put the Gaels ahead 7-0.

A second King try and Keane conversion made it 14-0 less than 12 minutes into the game.and two more tries and conversions put Saint Mary's ahead 28-0 with about 10 minutes left in the first half.

Cal finally got on the scoreboard when Marcus Shankland scored a try in the final seconds of the first half. Nate Salter failed to make the long conversion attempt from a difficult angle and against the wind, leaving Saint Mary's ahead 28-5 at halftime.

Cal got itself back in the contest by scoring three consecutive tries, the first by Emilio Shea, the second on a long Will Shankland run and the third by Sam Golla. That reduced the Cal deficit to 28-26 with 24 minutes still remaining in the match.

"Pretty easy to figure Cal could dig their way out of a hole in a hurry, and they certainly did," said Saint Mary's coach Tim O'Brien, who played his college rugby at Cal in the early 1980s.

However, the Cal momentum was halted when Inoke Waqavasi scored a try for the Gaels. That and another Keane conversion pushed the Saint Mary's lead to 35-26 with 20 minutes remaining.

Cal threatened in the remaining time but could not come up with another try to put the pressure on the Gaels.

Since the start of the 2012 season, Cal and Saint Mary's have met 12 times, and each team has won six times. The last time Cal and Saint Mary's faced each other in a postseason game, Cal won on a try in extra time in 2019.

Cover photo by Guy Warren Photography

Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

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