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May 31st, 2005 All 5 UCSB Women's Rugby players invited to the training camp for
the u/23 SoCal Women's Rugby Team have been selected for the final
touring side. They are: April 18th, 2005 A slick UC Santa Barbara team moved the ball well and raced out to a 15-3 halftime lead through a try from Ryan Brown, which he converted, a Brown penalty, and an unconverted try. Utah had their chances but the UCSB cover defense was there. But slowly in the second half the Utes came back. TJ Davis' converted try made it 15-10 all of a sudden and then Ben Hill raced over to tie it up. UCSB took the lead on yet another Brown penalty kick 18-15. Then it came down to Pete Black. The fullback had missed a couple of makeable kicks early on, and that all looked like it would mean something. But the former USA U19 fullback slotted a goal late to tie it up, and then converted his own try to win the game 25-18 in dramatic fashion. UCSB came at it again to force overtime, but fell short. Two Utah teams make the semis, and likely three Pacific Coast teams will be there. Southern California, though, scorned with one seed this year made an excellent accounting of themselves, as the Gauchose dropped higher-ranked Wyoming and were whisker-close to Utah. Seeing as the entire So Cal league was close enough to throw a blanket over the top four teams, they deserve another seed for 2006. Photos from Friday game against Wyoming:
April 11th, 2005 This Friday and Saturday nights, at UCSB's Harder Stadium, the
Gauchos Check Sweet 16 brackets on USA Rugby : http://www.usarugby.org/championships/CollegiateMenI/brackets.html Please come out and give the boys some hometown support. Thanks ..Lance 24th March 2005 By Alex Goff March 24, 2005 – UC Santa Barbara head coach Kevin Battle has confirmed that his side will represent the Southern California RFU at the upcoming men's DI collegiate playoffs rather than league leader Cal State Long Beach. According to numerous reports, CSLB has been disqualified due to the use of ineligible players. The change is an interesting development for SCRFU. Last year, despite sending the a team that reached the national final, Southern Cal was stripped of its second seed due to the poor performance of that very same UCSB side. Santa Barbara was hard-done by, said Battle earlier this month. And that seems to be true. UCSB played Army in the opening round in 2004 and lost a close contest 28-21. Army went on to lose the next round to Navy, but were still regarded as an excellent side. On the second day of the playoffs, UCSB faced UC Davis in consolation, and a combination of injuries and misfortune helped UCSB to an embarrassing 67-0 loss. "We weren't really judged on the performance over the season, and not even by the fact we came so close to Army, but on one bad day when we'd been hit by injuries," said Battle. "To take a seed away for that was very tough to take. We were gutted and we're gutted not to make the playoffs this year." And that's exactly where they were until yesterday, on the outside looking in. At 6-1-1 they were half a game behind CSLB, who had been given the only SoCal seed to nationals. But now that's changed, and Battle demurred on sounding too happy, but it is clear UCSB is ready for retribution. The odd thing is that despite finishing behind Long Beach, Santa Barbara will likely do better in the playoffs than Long Beach would have. Why? Partly it's down to experience, and several UCSB players have been there before. Partly it's to do with the weather. Long Beach, while a good side well-coached, benefitted from the unseasonably wet weather in Southern California this winter. They slogged out some close wins over several of the top teams when a drier track might well have seen a different result. And while the GoffonRugby handicappers were poised to pick the West #2 (Wyoming) as heavy favorites in the opening round of the playoffs, that game is now up in the air. Meanwhile, due to the disqualification, Cal State Long Beach has been dropped from its position at #20 (tied) in the GoffonRugby Top 20. 8th March 2005 In the very tight race in Southern California, UC Santa Barbara (#18) defeated Arizona 25-10 and Arizona State 40-3 to move to 5-1-1, but Cal State Long Beach stayed half a step ahead with a 46-7 defeat of San Diego University. UCLA also won, 42-18 over San Diego State to move to 3-2, and Cal Poly seems to have put it together, but it’s now a two-horse race. Long Beach has a tough final fixture against San Diego State while UCSB faces San Diego. A win by Long Beach and they are in the national playoffs. If Long Beach loses and UCSB wins, then Santa Barbara goes through. UCSB will be hosting one of the sweet 16 pools at Harder Stadium on April 15th & 16th...lets hope they are playing in it! MER San Diego State Ties with UC Santa Barbara 28/02/05
SDSU led for most of this game, but couldn’t hold off a hard charging Santa Barbara who scored a converted try at the death to square up the ledger. Trailing 13-20 well into injury time, UCSB openside flanker Francois Simon punched it in out wide. The touchdown resulted from a series of four or five phases, before Simon crashed into the try zone. Then, under all sorts of pressure, goal kicker Ryan Brown calmly slotted the game-tying conversion that left players, coaches and spectators alike emotionally drained. Earlier in the piece, Simon had scored UCSB’s only other try, while all up, Brown booted two penalties and two conversions. “San Diego State’s a very well-drilled side and they kind of had us on our heels for most of the game,” said UC Santa Barbara head coach Kevin Battle. “I’m very proud of the guys, they didn’t give up even though they were being outplayed for most of the game.” SDSU had the game in their hands, although Santa Barbara appeared to have a speed advantage across the field and was able to play at a frantic pace. “To me, we lost the game five to ten minutes before the last try was scored when we were up by ten and then by seven,” said San Diego State head coach Dave Barnes. “But we were pleased that we played better this week. “It was a pretty well played match that we were able to get in despite all the flooding, and it was two quality teams.” The result put UC Santa Barbara at 3-1-1 and SDSU at 2-1-1. As the competition moves into the business end of proceedings, several teams are still in the mix for the Southern California seeding including Long Beach State, UCSB, SDSU, Arizona and UCLA. However, all of them need to win, pick up bonus points along the
way, and rely on help from other teams, so it’s shaping up
to be a rather interesting finish.
Long Beach State Upsets Again February 20, 2005 – Cal State Long Beach upset another ranked opponent this week as they defeated national #13 UC Santa Barbara 17-12 on a wet beach on their home campus. This followed another close win over UCLA earlier in the season, but head coach Emyr Williams is for the moment not booking any national playoff airline tickets for his 5-0 side. "We are very pleased and we’re happy that we won, but this was a very close game and I think if UCSB had been fortunate, and if they’d chosen to kick for points at a couple of opportunities, they might have won." For their part, Long Beach has benefited from a concerted recruiting effort that has seen the program grow from too few to play to close to 40. Among those who have joined are try-scorer Robert Hughes, and flyhalf Jake MacDonald, a Scotsmen who is on exchange from University of Wales, Cardiff. Long Beach gets the odd exchange student and in recent years their basketball and field hockey teams have benefited from these programs. This year, they got three rugby players. The pick of them is probably MacDonald, who slots goals with metronomic reliability from anywhere within 40 meters, and his four penalties Saturday helped overcome a two to one UCSB advantage in tries. Williams acknowledged that the slow ground helped his defense bottle up a run-happy UCSB, but he adds his own backs like a dry track and are willing to spin it. At 5-0 Long Beach State stands, imprbably, atop the So Cal standings. But they still have Cal Poly (always tough despite their downward turn) and San Diego State (on the upswing). "This is the toughest we’ve seen Southern Cal rugby in a long while," said Williams. "Of course the irony is we only get one seed to the national playoffs, when we have several teams vying for a spot. It doesn’t really make any sense." Despite having their champion make the national final, So Cal lost a seed due to the poor results by their #2 seeds. When this came about most clubs gnashed their teeth in part because they felt Cal Poly had that top seed sewn up. Not so, and now the league remains wide open. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UC
Santa Barbara Edges UCLA in Injury Time 06/02/05
Scrumhalf Adam Christie was the hero for Santa Barbara as it was he who scored the game-winner for the Gauchos. Both teams crossed for two tries apiece, the difference being an extra penalty goal by UC Santa Barbara fullback and kicker Ryan Brown. Wing Jacob Greenberg scored Santa Barbara’s first try, while Brown booted one conversion and two penalties. Fullback Paul Giannechini and winger CJ Pagnanelli were UCLA’s try-scorers, while flyhalf Joey Connelly landed a conversion and a penalty goal. Inside center Tommy Burns had one of his best games of the season so far for the Bruins, while captain and openside flanker Richard White also deserves a mention for turning in a solid performance. “We didn’t play our best game,” UC Santa Barbara head coach Kevin Battle told RugbyRugby. “It was pretty frustrating all around because we were killing ourselves with mistakes, but to come back and win in injury time was fantastic.” From UCLA’s perspective, it was a case of one that got away from them. “One mistake here and a dropped ball there can make the difference, and that’s the kind of game it was,” added UCLA head coach Scott Stewart. “We had a lot of territorial advantage, but we didn’t do enough with it. They were more accomplished than us in the red zone. “In the three games we’ve played in the League, we all feel that one error in each game has seen us come out on the wrong side of the score. But we’re happy that we are a competitive side, and we look forward to a positive response from this.” UC Santa Barbara is now 3-0 in League play, while UCLA drops to
1-2.
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