GRR: St. Mary's
UCLA defeated Saint Mary’s 22-12 Saturday in Los Angeles, shutting out the Gaels in the second half to preserve a huge victory for the Bruins.
Both teams were coming off close games in which they felt they gave up far too many points—Saint Mary’s had won 43-38 over Cal Poly, while UCLA had dropped a 47-41 decision to Central Washington.
Cal Poly pushed Saint Mary's in a rather surprising meeting of the top two teams in the California D1A Conference, but the Gaels held on 43-38.
The game started well for the Gaels. They moved into Cal Poly territory and spun it wide to freshman Aisake Tukuafu, who sped in to touch down. Ollie Cline slotted the extras and it was 7-0.
This is most certainly a different Saint Mary's team than the one that played the first half of the Palmetto Bowl in December.
Saint Mary’s broke open a close, back-and-forth game to score four tries in the final 24 minutes and beat BYU 60-28 Saturday in Moraga, Caif.
Saint Mary's defeated Arizona Saturday in Tucson, but perhaps that's not the news.
The news is that Arizona almost won, and the Wildcats held the Gaels to just the two tries in a 12-10 decision. Both teams played very good defense and both teams made mistakes on attack—Arizona was perhaps a shade impatient with some prime scoring opportunities; Saint Mary's