March 18, 2006

BERKELEY - The Golden Bears defeated the University of Colorado, 67-27, for the right to face University of New Mexico in tomorrow's 2 p.m. final of the 10th Annual Cal Invitational.

Winger Jason Lee and replacement inside center Ryan Donnelly scored hat tricks for the Bears, who found a higher gear to pull away from CU with 11 tries after the Buffaloes managed to keep the match close in the first half.

Colorado still harbors hopes of finding its way into the seedings for the National Championship in April and will attempt to rebound in the noon consolation game on Sunday against Cal Poly, which fell by 30-25 to the Lobos in Saturday's first action.

Cal surrendered 22 first-half points and overcame some porous tackling to improve to 15-0 against Colorado, doing so with yet another new lineup from previous weeks.

"Our open play on the fringe was just horrible," said sophomore Chris Biller. "We had to get organized at halftime, clean up our defense and keep ball in hand, and we ended up coming out fine."

Biller, a sophomore alumnus of De La Salle high school, continued to hone his skills as a prop for the second weekend in a row. "I still need a lot of work, but with every scrum I feel a little bit better," he said. Biller will be back at his more familiar position of hooker tomorrow.

It may have been a lack of familiarity among the Cal starters that accounted for the Bears' shortcomings, but no excuses would make a difference when the match was knotted at 17 after 20 minutes. The Buffaloes got going early with an end-to-end counter-attack, capitalized on Lee's failed interception attempt for a second score and kept rolling through shaky Cal tackling for a third try to make it a 17-17 match.

A quick tap following a CU penalty allowed senior scrumhalf Andrew Johnson to regain the lead for Cal in the 25th minute and after that, the Bears never looked back. Well-chosen words from head coach Jack Clark at halftime may have woken the Bears from their poor-tackling stupor.

Junior Joe Welch started at hooker for the second straight weekend, surrounded in the front row by two sophomores, Jim Barrett and Biller. Welch had to exit the match with 10 minutes to play with an injury.

All-America junior Louis Stanfill was joined in the second row by freshman Julian Snellgrove. Senior James Sehr worked with senior Toby Smith at the other flank, and transfer junior James Keady got the call at #8. Keady and Smith are in their first year with Cal Rugby.

In the back line, sophomore inside center Cody Stevens combined with fellow second-years Scott Kidd and Lee on the wings. Stevens tweaked his hamstring five minutes into the second half and was replaced by freshman Austin Pugh, who also fell to injury and yielded to Ryan Donnelly five minutes later.

Johnson played all 80 minutes at scrumhalf and junior fullback Chris Gurecki made another stride back from injury with his first start in '06. Gurecki played 75 solid minutes before being replaced by Pat Castles.

Cal's lineup against the Buffs was rounded out by outside center and match-day captain Chase Brogan, a senior who scored two tries, and junior transfer David Poettcker at flyhalf, who ended the day 6-for-11 on conversion kicks.

Colorado head coach Sean Edris was pleased despite the final score. "We started three freshmen today, and getting them into a game at a venue like this is an experience that will make them much better rugby players," he said. "We're smaller than Cal but we tried to use that altitude training, and it does help. But a good race horse is always going to finish strong, and that's what Cal is."

Looking ahead to the consolation match against Cal Poly, coach Edris was optimistic. "Flying out to California, we want to play California teams, so it works out great for us," he said.

Cal approaches tomorrow's final against New Mexico with a wary eye knowing that the Lobos played with determination from kickoff through the final whistle against Cal Poly.

New Mexico head coach Ian Jones said he "thought Cal Poly took us too lightly. They spurned kicks, and though they're a great rugby side, it seemed they only had a Plan A, no Plan B. I was disappointed with many aspects of our play, but from a coaching point of view, if you can come away with a win and still be disappointed, that's got to be good."

In their last meeting, on Feb. 16, 2002, Cal defeated New Mexico by the score of 43-3.

The Scoring Timeline vs. Colorado:

06:00 Chase Brogan 5, David Poettcker 2

10:00 Colorado 5

12:00 Chase Brogan 5

15:00 Colorado 5

17:00 Jason Lee 5

20:00 Colorado 5, 2

25:00 Andrew Johnson 5, David Poettcker 2

34:00 Colorado 5

39:00 Chris Biller 5, David Poettcker 2

Half Time: California 31, Colorado 22

42:00 Jason Lee 5, David Poettcker 2

47:00 Andrew Lindsey 5

54:00 Jason Lee 5, David Poettcker 2

57:00 Colorado 5

66:00 Ryan Donnelly 5

72:00 Ryan Donnelly 5, David Poettcker 2

79:00 Ryan Donnelly 5

Final Score: California 67, Colorado 27

The Team vs. Colorado:

15. Gurecki (Castles @ 75:00), 14. Lee, 13. Brogan ©, 12. Stevens (Pugh @ 45:00, Donnelly @ 50:00), 11. Kidd, 10. Poettcker, 9. Johnson, 1. Barrett, 2. Welch (Kuhns @ 70:00), 3. Biller, 4. Snellgrove, 5. L Stanfill (Jesseman @ 70:00), 6. T Smith, 7. Sehr (Keady @ 31:00), 8. Keady (Lindsey @ 31:00)