Saint Mary’s Advances to Their Fourth Consecutive D1A National Championship

MORAGA, CALIF. - On the road to the national championship, #2 Saint Mary’s hosted #5 Utah for the D1A Semifinals. It was a tale of two halves for the Gaels, as their play was much better in the second half.

Utah was able to start the game off strong by taking advantage of Saint Mary’s early penalties and sloppy first ten minutes of play. Fly-half Josh Webber hit both of his penalty goals to give the Utes a 6-0 lead.

A Saint Mary’s lineout pass took a bounce into Vili Helu’s hands, who advanced the ball before Dino Waldren took the ball and scored a try in the middle of the goalposts. It was the beginning of a great game for the senior All-American. Dylan Audsley, the inaugural winner of the Rudy Scholz Award, which honors the best collegiate rugger in the country, nailed his first conversion of the afternoon to give the Gaels their first lead, 7-6.

Saint Mary’s controlled the scrums the whole match. This was evident when the Gaels drove a Utes’ scrum back, which allowed Vili Helu to pick up the ball and score a try. This try doubled the Utes’ score, 12-6.

With twenty minutes remaining in the first half, Dino Waldren was given a yellow card and had to sit for ten minutes. Utah took advantage of playing with one more man on the pitch than the Gaels and scored a try after a lineout from the left sideline to make the score close at 12-11.

The Gaels responded to the Utes’ first try of the match when Dylan Audsley was hopping around defenders and offloaded the ball to winger Tommy Wallace on the right side of the field, who scored the try to give the Gaels more of a cushion, 17-11. Freshman Aaron Matthews expanded the lead by scoring a try of his own on the right side as well. Audsley’s conversion gave the Gaels a 24-11 lead.

Four minutes later, Utah’s Gabriel Ruflin scored a try on the left side of the field after the Utes passed the ball quickly and with a purpose. Webber hit the conversion to shrink the Gaels’ lead to 24-18.

With just under seven minutes until halftime, Vili Helu had a mad dash and passed the ball nicely to team captain Kevin O’Connor, who dove in for the try. Audsley’s third made conversion capped off the first half for the Gaels, who held a 31-18 lead.

To begin a second half full of offensive explosions for the Gaels, Dino Waldren simply picked the ball up from a Helu ruck near the 50 metre line and ran all the way down the field with no support and dove for his second try of the day. Per usual, Audsley made the conversion to give Saint Mary’s a 20 point lead over the Utes, 38-18.

Saint Mary’s scored another try at the try line for their second converted try within the first seven minutes of the second half. With a 45-18 lead, the Gaels were just getting started.

After spreading the field wide and with good passing, the Gaels were able to get the ball into Nick Schlobohm’s hands, who took it all the way down the right sideline for the try. On the conversion kick, the Scholz award winner Dylan Audsley bent the ball like David Beckham to give Saint Mary’s a 52-18 lead. Later, Mike McCarthy kicked a perfectly placed ball in the left try zone, where Audsley recovered it for a try of his own.

After giving up 33 consecutive points, Utah was finally able to push the ball over the try line after a goal line stand with just under seventeen minutes left in the match. Webber’s conversion gave the Utes 25 points on the day compared to the Gaels’ 57.

Dino Waldren continued his marvelous play by stealing the ball and taking it all the way for a hat trick. Audsley capped off the great hustle play with another made conversion to give Saint Mary’s 64 points.

Four minutes later, the Utes scored a try of their own, which Webber converted, to score half of what the Gaels had, 64-32.

In the last seven minutes of the match, Saint Mary’s scored three more tries to end the Utes’ season just short of reaching the D1A National Championship. Tommy Wallace’s quick try was his second of the day. On the third and last try of this sequence, reserve Bradley Roberts received the ball on the left side of the field and was able to run diagonally across the field and Utah’s defense for the try on the right side. Roberts’ try gave the Gaels an 81-32 lead, which would prove to be the final score when all was said and done.

With the semifinal win over Utah, the Saint Mary’s Gaels advance to their fourth consecutive national championship, where they will meet Life University for the fourth consecutive time as well. Life beat Lindenwood 41-7 earlier in the day. The first time that these two teams met in 2013, Life took the trophy home. But in the past two years, the Gaels took the title and have defended it successfully for a year. It remains to be seen whether they can go for a three-peat against #1 Life on Saturday, May 7, at 5:00 P.M. One advantage that the Gaels will have over Life is that the D1A National Championship is being hosted by Saint Mary’s College of California at Saint Mary’s Stadium. Having the comfort of sleeping in their own beds the night before, the familiarity with the grass field, and the support of the home crowd all figure to play to the Gaels’ favor.