Central Washington logged their second-straight victory over a highly-ranked Canadian college, beating this past fall's Canadian national champs University of British Columbia Saturday in Ellensburg.
UBC scored first with a penalty from center Takoda McMullin. The Thunderbirds kept up the pressure but could not garner further points. At 23 minutes UBC got down to the CWU tryline and stayed there for several minutes. But finally a knock-on in the ruck gave Central a chance to get out of trouble. The ensuing sequence was a little chaotic, with the ball bouncing around in strange directions (the best was a kick from CWU that bounced off a UBC player's head and caromed off a CWU player's face).
The game stayed in the middle of the field until Central broke down the right sideline with some nice ball movement. They kept that up, moving the ball from the ruck quickly and finally getting loose forward Andrew Miller in a position to surge over. That made it 5-3, and while McMullin nudged UBC ahead with another penalty, CWU started the second half with back rower Arona Tauliili scoring to put the Wildcats ahead 10-6.
Flyhalf Jac Tregoning added a penalty goal but the game remained close until the final 15 minutes. Once again CWU tested the right side and a power-running captain Calvin Liulamaga accelerated onto a good pass from scrumhalf Kye Jones to seal it. With Tregoning's conversion CWU led 20-6. UBC did score a try just before full time, but they didn't have enough time for more.
"Massive effort from us today, backing up on a short turnaround against a very good team," said CWU Head Coach Todd Thornley. "UBC made us work for 80 minutes as expected, but I am proud of the effort from our guys."
Full game here:
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