Seven minutes into the second half of the Cal rugby team’s Saturday match against St. Mary’s, Tiaan De Nysschen shrugged off a swarm of defenders, zipped up the middle of the field, belly-dived with the ball between the goalposts and tossed the ball high in the air in celebration.
A 15-point deficit was reduced to just three, and the message was clear: If you thought Superman had a Kryptonite, think again.
In front of a charged, polarized crowd in the final home match of the year at Witter Rugby Field, the Bears stormed back from the biggest deficit they’d faced all year, overcoming injuries to Russell Webb and Jared Braun in a thunderous 42-31 win over their East Bay rivals that capped a perfect 19-0 regular season.
“It took a fair bit of belief,” said Cal coach Jack Clark. “It took a fair bit of belief to say, ‘Look… we’re a good team. This isn’t over.”
After a first half of bad breaks and mental miscues, Cal’s prospects looked as bleak as they had in any game this season.
For most of the first half, neither team was able to advance to the try zone. But in the 33rd minute, the Gaels caught a break as Braun crumpled to the ground with an apparent leg injury. With the Bears down a man, Cooper Maloney pushed through for a try and later converted to give St. Mary’s a 16-6 edge.
Four minutes later, the Gaels struck again, a gut punch made worse by the loss of Webb in the closing seconds of the half. The Bears trailed 21-6 as they left the field.
“We had them constantly wondering where we were going to attack from,” said St. Mary’s coach Tim O’Brien. “Our adventurous components were working.”
But Clark, a maestro of second-half adjustments, was always a step ahead of his counterpart in the second half.
Two minutes into the period, sophomore Nicholas Boyer scored Cal’s first try of the game after a diagonal downfield sprint aided by Seamus Kelly and Brendan Daly. Five minutes later, De Nysschen’s try and the ensuing conversion brought the deficit down to one. Cal took the lead at the 53rd-minute mark on a Danny Barrett try.
As the Bears walked back down the field, sophomore sub Eakalafi Okusi gestured to the crowd to make some noise. They did, and Cal never relinquished the lead.
“The fans were behind us 100 percent,” said junior Alec Gletzer, whose bruising, Marshawn Lynch-esque running helped set up various Cal tries. “The second wind kicked in, and we jumped on it.”
St. Mary’s (11-2) brought the game to within a point midway through the second half, but the conversion was shanked from close range. The Bears scored 15 unanswered to put the game away, outscoring the Gaels 36-10 in the half.
Though the teams are headed to separate postseasons, the Bears left little doubt which team is the king of Bay Area rugby.
“We just had to clean up our game a little,” Clark said. “And then kind of play our guts out, and I think we really did that.”
Chris Yoder covers rugby. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @christiancyoder.