College Men
Cal State Long Beach came into the 2016 Gold Coast Conference season as defending champions, and with an eye, yet again, on a national title.
But the 49ers got a bit of a shock from lightly-regarded Southern California - Long Beach went on to win 24-17, but it wasn’t easy.
The Western Washington Vikings opened up their Northwest Collegiate Rugby Conference with a 49-7 defeat of Oregon Saturday.
Played at WWU’s Harrington Field, the game dropped Oregon to 0-2 and raised WWU to 1-0. Western played well despite the heartbreaking loss of Louie Henson, the team’s captain and powerful try-scoring prop. He is out for his senior season with a knee injury.
Grand Canyon University notched two accomplishments Saturday.
First off, GCU recorded the team's first conference win in the Gold Coast Conference, after having joined the league this past offseason.
Week two in the Pacific Western DIAA Conference, and Chico State once again won big, beating San Francisco State 74-0 behind 12 tries.
CSU is now 2-0, having sunk San Jose State the week before. Against SFSU, Danny Lalor scored three tries, and both Drew Parson and Jack Fondale scored two.
Oklahoma remained unbeaten in the Red River Conference with a gritty 31-19 defeat of Texas A&M Saturday.
Also winning in Red River were LSU and Texas Tech.
Oklahoma did well to lead going against the wind, but with the wind at their backs, knocked on the second half kickoff. This gave the Aggies a prime attacking opportunity. which they converted to take a 19-17 lead.