Last year, the Bears failed to make the playoffs, suffered two losses for the first time since 2009 and played all their matches on the road. It was not a normal season for the 26-time national champions.

“A lot of people saw us as having a down year,” said Cal captain Seamus Kelly early in the season. “We want to re-establish ourselves at the top of the sport.”

And that was the goal coming into the spring: to prove last season was just an anomaly.

The team’s campaign started well. At Cal’s official reopening of Witter Rugby Field, against Stanford, the Bears exploded for a 176-0 victory. In the team’s first match in the newly formed PAC Rugby Conference, against Arizona State, Cal won 104-0. And in a rematch of last year’s loss to Cal Poly, the Bears defeated the Mustangs 112-7.

A 10-point home win over the University of British Columbia in February was an early test. But Cal was the best team throughout the match — minus a few lapses in the second half.

The Bears had yet to show how good they could be.

But in the course of two matches in early March, the Bears lost scrumhalf Paul Bosco and wing Anthony Lombardo to season-ending injuries. For a team with more than five dozen players, it wasn’t a question of whether or not someone could fill in the spots but of how the Bears would respond after losing two of the best players in the country at their positions.

Despite the injuries, the Bears kept winning.

With a 17-0 record, Cal headed into its final three matches of the regular season in what proved to be the Bears’ toughest stretch. After slim halftime leads against British Columbia and Utah, Cal used strong second halves to win.

But the team’s most impressive comeback came in the regular season finale against St. Mary’s. Trailing by 15 at the half, the Bears scored three tries in 13 minutes to open the second half. Cal went on to beat the Gaels by 11 points.

It proved to be the defining win of the season.

Less than a month after the St. Mary’s match, in the finals of the Varsity Cup National Championships, the Bears were down early.

Trailing Brigham Young University 16-3 late in the first half, Cal freshman Russell Webb’s try brought the Bears within single digits.

In the second half, when BYU tried to extend its lead, Cal came back again. A try from Kelly with six minutes to play tied the score. For a moment, it looked like the Bears might pull it off.

But a well-executed tactic — a drop kick off the foot of BYU halfback Jonathan Linehan — as time expired, ended Cal’s undefeated season and hopes for a title.

Finishing with a national championship would have been a storybook end to the year. But Cal head coach Jack Clark still viewed the season as a success.

“The 2013 team, under Seamus’ leadership, really took us back to where we want to be,” Clark said after the championship match. “I’m privileged to coach this particular team. I am really proud of the things we were able to accomplish.”

For Kelly, the match against BYU should not be his last. He plans on returning to the team for his fifth year next spring in what Clark said would be his third season as captain of the Bears. Even though the 2013 season ended without a championship trophy, the team’s 21-1 record re-established Cal’s standing as one of the best rugby teams in the country.

“There were some great moments this season,” Kelly said after the match against BYU. “I think we can look at ourselves as a team that got Cal rugby back on track.”

Stephen Hobbs covers rugby. Contact him at shobbs@dailycal.org

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Twenty-one wins were forged on halftime adjustments — tweaks that turned those lingering close games into routs. Three weeks ago, Cal trailed St. Mary’s by 15 at halftime only to turn the tables and waltz to an easy win. Not every game was a tale of two halves, but in those that were, the second halves always belonged to the blue and gold. Why would the national championship be any different?

It hurts to get so close to the top of a mountain only to tumble off just inches from the peak. After stifling a blizzard of BYU attacks in a tie game in the waning minutes, a mere dropkick befell the Bears. Seconds later, the whistle blew. 27-24. Game over. Season over. Twenty-one wins. And one stinkin’, heart-wrenching, soul crusher of a loss.

It sucks to lose. It sucks even more when you’ve made a habit of winning. Consolation is a cruel reward.

But damn, don’t let this overshadow everything else the Cal rugby team did this year.

If a team’s entertainment value is measured by its margin of victory, the Bears were astoundingly boring this year. Cal didn’t win a single match all year by single digits. Coach Clark, the professor of process, trains his team not to look at the scoreboard. It’s a luxury only teams like Cal can afford. Even in Clark’s most lopsided wins, he maintains a critical eye.

On Jan. 26, the Bears beat Stanford, 176-0. So, how did you think your boys did, Coach?

“I thought we did OK.”

UBC was supposed to be a challenge. Cal won the “World Cup” by a total of 42 points. Utah was supposed to be a challenge. Cal won by 22. Navy was supposed to be a challenge. The Bears throttled them, 74-6.

Those results could have been worse. Penn State was the only other fearsome foe Cal faced from across the Mississippi. The Bears won that matchup, 100-0.

There will be another national championship played this year under the aegis of the fading collegiate format that is USA Rugby. In the coming weeks, there might be debate over which of the two championships is the “real” one. There shouldn’t be. Saturday’s matchup was clearly contested between the two best teams in college rugby.

It was the first time all year Cal played a game that was still being contested late in the second half. BYU’s team not only rolled with Cal’s punches — it fought back.

It was unlike anything the Bears had seen this year. Down 19-10 halfway through the second half, Jack O’Beirne converted try cut the lead to two. BYU promptly answered with a try of its own. Seamus Kelly’s try with six minutes left helped the Bears tie the game, but it was Jonny Linehan’s fluttering dropkick that sounded the game’s final note.

Maybe the Bears just needed to play more close games. Or maybe collegiate opponents aren’t enough of a challenge for them anymore. The Cougars’ two losses came to strong club teams. Perhaps the bitter taste of defeat was what galvanized them.

The cards were stacked against the Bears, but you won’t see any Cal players attributing their play to BYU’s raucous home field advantage, nor the slew of injuries that stripped the team of a good chunk of its senior talent. No, the Bears will attribute this loss to sloppy play and a lack of precision. As a result, BYU gets the glory.

Would the Bears have won if they’d been fully healthy? We’ll never know. So it goes with sports. You give it your best with the best you are given and hope that’s enough to beat the other guys. Cal’s best, even without several of the top players in the country, was good enough to beat the other guys 21 times this year.

It just wasn’t enough on Saturday.

Chris Yoder covers rugby. Contact him at cyoder@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @christiancyoder.

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With only seconds left in the match, Brigham Young University’s freshman halfback Jonathan Linehan received the ball from a scrum just meters away from the Bears’ goal line. The Cal players had no time to react. In one motion, Linehan drop-kicked the ball through the uprights.

The referee then blew his whistle. The match was over.

Cal (21-1) fell, 27-24, to BYU (12-2) in Saturday afternoon’s final of the inaugural Varsity Cup National Championships.

“Guys played really hard, but I think our game was lacking a certain level of precision,” said Cal captain Seamus Kelly after the match. “We just let some little things go, and that cost us.”

Kelly emphasized that the Bears’ inability to complete scoring chances was key to the final outcome. Fullback Jake Anderson missed two penalty kicks, and Cal failed to come away with points after having chances near the Cougars’ goal line.

“They just took advantage of our mistakes and their opportunities,” Kelly said. “In a championship game, you can’t leave points off the board.”

Cal head coach Jack Clark agreed. He felt his team’s inability to put points away early played a bigger factor in his team’s loss than the final play of the match.

“I think we had some opportunities to score some points earlier in the match,” Clark said. “We had three or four legitimate scoring opportunities that we didn’t realize. That was a game that we could have won, and we didn’t. We let that one get away.”

But even with the missed chances, the Bears had multiple instances where they fought back during the game. The comeback began at the end of the first half.

Trailing by 13 points with six minutes left in the half, Cal freshman flyhalf Russell Webb’s quick-tap off of a penalty surprised BYU. Webb drove over the try-line, and his score brought the game to the 16-10 halftime score.

The Bears’ effort continued in the second half. “We had some players who put their guts into it, like Seamus,” Clark said. “I thought we played better in the second half that we did in the first.”

With the Cougars leading 19-10, mid-way through the second half, the Bears scored off of an attacking lineout. After Brendan Daly received the ball, a rolling maul from the Bears pushed BYU back to its goal line where flanker Jack O’Beirne touched down.

After an unconverted try by the Cougars, the Bears used another attacking lineout to set up a try from Kelly. A conversion by Anderson tied the score at 24 with only six minutes remaining.

Then came Linehan’s kick in the final seconds to seal the game. The freshman accounted for 22 of BYU’s points.

The Cougars’ win gave the team their third national championship in program history. All three have come in the past five seasons.

It was also the seventh meeting between the two teams in a national championship. With the loss, the Bears now have a 5-2 record in those matches.

After beating BYU in the national championship final in 2010 and 2011, the Bears failed to make the postseason last year.

Cal’s veteran players therefore viewed this year’s campaign as an opportunity for redemption.

And although the Bears’ season did not end perfectly, the team’s success this year was a sign that the program was back to its expectations.

“There were some great moments this season,” Kelly said. “I think we can look at ourselves as the team that got that Cal rugby back on track.”

Stephen Hobbs covers rugby. Contact him at shobbs@dailycal.org

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But Cal’s noon matchup against BYU on Saturday won’t be like all the others.

Forget the 176-0 walloping of Stanford — Cal’s largest win ever — and the three other triple-digit wins over some of college rugby’s most esteemed opponents.

Forget the “World Cup” — the pair of hard-fought wins over British Columbia that should have been close but turned into routs of Cal’s ancient rival.

Forget the ease with which the Bears won the PAC Rugby Conference championship in its inaugural year, winning its five conference games by an average of 60 points.

Forget the undefeated regular season and the spotless 21-0 record. The gap between Cal and every team it faced was a veritable chasm.

It was all just a prelude for Saturday’s main event.

The Varsity Cup National Championship between two gritty juggernauts in Provo, Utah, will be the definitive yardstick in one of Cal’s more impressive seasons in recent memory. The capstone in what has been a historic season for the Bears will be the hardest piece to place.

“They’re a very, very talented team,” says Cal coach Jack Clark of the Cougars. “They’re well-coached, and they’ll be playing at home in front of a large, partisan crowd.”

Since USA Rugby began crowning national champions in 1980, the two squads have stood head-and-shoulders over the college rugby world — particularly in recent years. Only five times in the last three decades has a team other than Cal or BYU won the national title. No other team has won since 2003.

As the 21st century unfurled, Cal-BYU became an annual event. From 2006-11, the two teams squared off for the national championship six years in a row, with the Bears winning all but one of them.

But unlike Cal’s championships of preceding years, for which scorelines tended to favor Cal quite generously, BYU became the rare team that could play the Bears in a nail-biter. Four of those six championship games were decided by 12 points or less. Two were decided by just three.

This year’s matchup could be similarly close.

The Cougars (11-2) have marauded through their 15s schedule with Cal-like cunning, ruthlessly dispatching all their opponents except for two club teams. Since their new stadium, South Field, was renovated in 2008, the Cougars have never lost a home match against collegiate competition.

“(It’s) a really hostile atmosphere with the fans there,” said Cal senior Seamus Kelly. “It’ll be a major challenge.”

But the championship is more than a mere battle between two of the country’s best teams.

Saturday’s matchup will be the first final in the inaugural Varsity Cup, a collegiate competition that arose out of the dust of a crumbling USA Rugby, which saw its talent pool diluted after the flight of its top two members.

The Varsity Cup consists of just eight teams this year, but it includes the two programs that matter the most.

“It’ll really be a steep challenge for our boys,” Clark said. “But for what it matters, we’re looking forward to it.”

Chris Yoder covers rugby. Contact him at cyoder@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @christiancyoder.

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Danny Barrett called them “big, strong, thick guys who are going out to protect our country.”

Even Cal coach Jack Clark called them “the most organized, buttoned-up, disciplined, fit, team-oriented guys you can ever imagine.”

The Cal rugby team seemed to be expecting a challenge from the U.S. Naval Academy in Saturday’s national semifinal.

It wasn’t even close.

The Bears bade farewell to their home crowd and advanced to the Varsity Cup national championship with a resounding 74-6 win over the Midshipmen at Witter Rugby Field.

“When there’s nothing to lose, single elimination, there’s not much to leave in the tank,” said Kelly, a senior. “We emptied it.”

In a pattern consistent with many of their blowout wins this year, the Bears (21-0) allowed their opponent to hang in early in the first half before making adjustments to put the game out of reach.

Three minutes in, Navy (9-2) took a 3-0 lead on a Jack McAuliffe penalty kick. After two Cal tries gave the Bears a hearty lead, McAuliffe nailed another penalty at the 20-minute mark to cut Cal’s lead to 12-6.

The Midshipmen wouldn’t score again the rest of the day. The Bears closed the game on a 62-0 run.

“I think we played good defense,” Barrett, a senior playing his final home game for Cal, said. “It’s a tough thing when you’ve got a guy who’s going to be giving his life running at you, trying to bowl over you. So our defense, our tackling was stout today. It was on par.”

Cal’s lethal, aggressive offense left Navy’s defense on its heels throughout the match. No more than 13 minutes passed between each Cal try, with six being scored in each half.

Kelly led the squad with four tries, but nine different Bears contributed points throughout the match. Freshman Harry Adolphus, making his first start of the season at fullback, nailed all five of his conversions after taking over for an injured Jake Anderson.

Even by Cal standards, it was a landmark performance. Whereas many head coaches are self-critical after being routed by the Bears, Navy’s Mike Flanagan refused to admonish his own team.

“We know we can’t adjust what we do to stop what they do,” he said. “We worked really hard to play our style and our scheme, but Cal did a great job defensively, keeping us out of it.”

Now just one game stands between the Bears and their eighth national championship in the last 10 years. Their opponent? BYU, the winner of the other two.

The two teams had squared off in six consecutive national title games before the Bears withdrew from USA Rugby last year. With the two old rivals realigned this year in the newly inaugurated Varsity Cup, Cal will face its stiffest challenge on the road in the season’s final game.

“No doubt,” Clark said when asked if the upcoming matchup is his team’s toughest of the year.

But after the team’s performance against Navy, it’s hard to doubt the Bears at all.

“These guys are really good,” Flanagan said. “This might be clinically, technically, physically one of the best Cal teams we’ve had the privilege to play against.

“Man oh man, they’re rock solid.”

Chris Yoder covers rugby. Contact him at cyoder@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @christiancyoder.

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Not only will a win against the No. 6 seed Naval Academy advance the No. 2 Bears (20-0) to the finals of the Varsity Cup National Championships, but Cal will also have a chance to close out its first season back at home with an undefeated record.

And for a team that played the 2011 and 2012 seasons completely on the road, it has been a welcome return. So far, the team is 12-0 at home, with its closest outcomes coming in its last two matches.

“It’s been tremendous to be back here,” said Cal captain Seamus Kelly. “This is our home. Every time we run on this field with the fans and the championship banners, we are reminded of what’s come before us and the responsibility and the tradition we are a part of.”

Success for the Cal rugby team at home is nothing new. In fact, no player on the current Cal roster has ever lost a 15s match at home.

The last time the Bears lost to an opponent at Witter Rugby Field was March 3, 2007, to the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club.

And the last time Cal lost at home to a collegiate rugby team? April 3, 2004, to Cal Poly.

Despite Cal’s success, Saturday’s 2 p.m. match against Navy could be different.

The Midshipmen are coming off a 32-0 upset win over Dartmouth in Annapolis, Md., a victory that followed Cal’s win over Notre Dame last weekend.

After Cal head coach Jack Clark watched Navy play, he is expecting a tough match from the opposition.

In their history, the Bears have yet to lose to Navy, and the last time the two teams met in the postseason, Cal defeated the Midshipmen in the national collegiate semifinals in 2007. That year, the Bears went on to win the national championship.

“The Naval Academy team is comprised of a bunch of the most organized, buttoned-up disciplined, fit, team-oriented guys you can ever imagine,” Clark said. “How are we going to do when we play against a group of men who are of that caliber? Traditionally we’ve done well. But we don’t take that for granted.”

Clark was also impressed by Navy’s scrumhalf, No. 9, and flyhalf, No. 10, who he said possessed the ball for the majority of Navy’s offensive possessions.

“I thought they were were the two best 9s and 10s in the competition,” Clark said. “And a couple of the best I have seen all season.”

Combine that with uncertainty over injuries to Cal’s Andrew Battaglia, Russell Webb and Jared Braun, who did not travel to Annapolis last weekend, and the match could be tight.

But either way, the Bears can take solace in the fact of where the match is being played.

“There is nothing better than playing here at home,” said Cal hooker Grant Hyjer. “Coming back here and being able to go out with a bang would be a really awesome day.”

Stephen Hobbs covers rugby. Contact him at shobbs@dailycal.org.

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Choosing to forego the postseason it had played in for over three decades, the Bears withdrew from USA Rugby in December 2011, citing concern with the umbrella organization’s “competitive direction.”

So this year, along with several of the most dominant rugby programs in the country, the Bears are forging a new path.

The Varsity Cup, as the competition is known, features just eight teams this year, but it includes all the teams that have won national championships under the aegis of USA Rugby in the last 25 years.

The leap to the new postseason was a bold one. Saturday’s 10:30 a.m. skirmish with Notre Dame in Annapolis, Md., will be the first gauge of whether it was a move that paid off for Cal (19-0).

“I think the postseason format’s going to be more challenging than what you’ve had in the past,” said Cal coach Jack Clark. “You’ve got the winners of 31 of 33 national championships and a lot of teams that have perennial final four teams … So we have a very challenging postseason.”

The inception of the Varsity Cup has forced teams across the country to choose between two simultaneous postseasons, a battle that seems skewed to favor the newer version in the long run.

Although USA Rugby’s postseason will feature more teams this year, its talent pool is dwindling. The Varsity Cup has skimmed off the top teams in college rugby — namely Cal, BYU and Air Force. Those three teams have accounted for every national championship since 1987.

Of the other five schools in the tournament — Dartmouth, Central Washington, Navy, Notre Dame and UCLA — none will be a pushover. The tournament’s lowest seed, No. 8 UCLA, finished second in the PAC Rugby Conference this year.

“We’re guaranteed the first round, and that’s it,” said junior Tiaan De Nysschen. “Last year, we didn’t have the playoff as an option, and I think that was an extra motivator for some guys to get some extra work in.”

Although No. 7 seed Notre Dame isn’t likely to present much of a challenge to No. 2 seed Cal at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, the matchups in the next two rounds could be as tension-filled as any match Cal has played this year.

Should the Bears advance to the semifinal, they will host the winner of Saturday’s Dartmouth-Navy matchup in Strawberry Canyon. If the Bears make it to the final, they would most likely take on BYU on their home field in Provo, Utah.

In spite of the fact that two national champions will be crowned this year, the Varsity Cup’s slogan is an unambiguous one: American Rugby’s National Collegiate Championship. It’s a slogan the Bears have taken to heart.

Senior captain Seamus Kelly, when asked whether the Bears considered the Varsity Cup the national championship, had a one-word reply:

“Yes.”

Chris Yoder covers rugby. Contact him at cyoder@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @christiancyoder.

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First, the Gaels (11-1) are the best team the Bears have faced all season. Undefeated against collegiate competition, they’ve made a mockery of their schedule thus far. Bolstered by big wins against Penn State and Cal Poly, this might be the best team Cal’s East Bay counterparts have ever assembled.

“It’ll be the biggest challenge we’ve faced so far,” said senior Seamus Kelly. “I think because of their skill level and experience, how motivated they always are when they face us.”

Second, St. Mary’s is one of the few teams in the country that can claim to have defeated Cal. The Bears normally lose about once in a blue moon, but last year, they dropped the regular season finale to the Gaels. The 20-18 loss was the capstone in a disappointing 15s season in which the Bears finished just 15-2.

Finally, the Bears are as battered as they’ve ever been, nursing season-ending injuries to a number of players whom Cal coach Jack Clark calls “the best players in the country at their positions.”

“It’s been pretty dramatic,” Clark said, “losing as many starting good players as we have.”

But don’t expect the Gaels to pull off the upset at 1 p.m. on Witter Rugby Field on Saturday. It might not even be close.

After a season of blowout victories against some of the country’s best upstart programs, only St. Mary’s stands between Cal (18-0) and its third undefeated regular season in the last four years.

Still, it should be an interesting game.

The Gaels are characterized by an open, creative offense that strikes most lethally after turnovers. The Bears will need to be disciplined on both sides of the ball to keep down the most prolific offense they’ve faced all year, which averages over 60 points a game.

“They play very skillful, fast,” Kelly said. “I wouldn’t call it a loose version but a very exciting brand of rugby.”

Cal got a taste of that style in last year’s loss, which wasn’t decided until the closing minutes. Although the Bears hadn’t lost to the Gaels since 1988, the loss was more a reflection of a St. Mary’s ascendance than a Cal crumble.

“I think they’re a great ballclub,” Kelly said. “I feel like every year I’ve been here, they’ve gotten better, and they’ve got some really, really top-level athletes. Full credit to them last year.”

But to a Cal team that has won every game this year by double digits, even the best teams have barely provided scant competition.

The Bears claimed the “World Cup” in two convincing victories over British Columbia, the closer of which was effectively over halfway through the second half. In early March, the Bears disposed of a Penn State team that was expected to challenge them, 100-0. Most recently, Cal put away Utah by 22 points, a team which came a point from knocking off Cal a year ago.

To a team that has never been in serious jeopardy of losing a game all year, St. Mary’s will be a stiff test.

But considering Cal has yet to hit its ceiling, the odds of an upset don’t look good.

“We haven’t accomplished much yet,” Kelly said. “But I think we have the potential.”

Chris Yoder covers rugby. Contact him at cyoder@dailycal.org. Follow him on Twitter @christiancyoder.

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But the memorable afternoon did not mask the team’s dissatisfaction with its performance. A lack of consistent possession on offense with momentary lapses on defense against a strong opponent made for the closest conference match the Bears had all season.

“It wasn’t our happiest performance, but they are a pretty good team and we won the game comfortably,“ said Cal coach Jack Clark. “We were just OK the whole day.”

Clark identified the size and strength of the Utes (7-4, 2-2 in the PAC Rugby Conference) as an area of concern for the Bears heading into the match, and Utah’s physicality in scrums and rucks proved to be a tough test.

Cal (18-0, 5-0 in the PAC Rugby Conference) jumped out to an early 17-0 lead on a penalty kick from fullback Jake Anderson and converted tries by center Seamus Kelly and flanker Michael Bush.

The Bears were not able to extend their lead, and in the final 15 minutes of the first half, Utah finished on a 17-5 run. The run included a try just before time expired, which cut Cal’s lead to 22-17.

But for the second week in a row, adjustments from the coaching staff and players at halftime helped the Bears secure the win. Second-half replacements Danny Barrett and Alec Gletzer provided the spark of energy that Cal lacked.

“I just wanted to be fresh legs and get as much work done as I can,” Barrett said. “Me and Alec had a couple of words with each other — we’ve got to be the difference-makers.

“It’s kind of like an unwritten rule almost that if you come on in a substitution role, then you’re the new guys. You’ve got the fresh legs; let’s see what you can do.”

The results were immediately evident on the scoreboard. In the first five minutes of the second half, the Bears responded with a penalty kick from Anderson and a converted try from wing Andrew Battaglia to push the lead to 32-17.

“I think the biggest problem is that we didn’t connect one momentum to the next momentum,” said Utah’s assistant coach Jon Law. “It was that first five minutes of the second half that really dictated the rest of the game.”

Utah’s physicality got the attention of the Bears, as the Utes were a strong opponent for a team preparing for the final stretch of the season.

“I love the competition that we had,” said Cal forward J.P. Hurrell. “Especially in the front row, I thought we really brought it today, and we really stepped our game up from last week and the weeks previous to this.”

The match also was a preview of a team the Bears could see in the postseason.

“I wouldn’t want to be a team facing them in the Varsity Cup,” said Kelly of the Utes. “I think they are building some momentum, so credit to them.”

Stephen Hobbs covers rugby. Contact him at shobbs@dailycal.org

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“I think we looked at this game as a real test of where we are as a team,” said Cal captain Seamus Kelly, after the match. “And I think we passed that test.”

The Bears (17-0, 4-0 in the PAC Rugby Conference) used a 32-0 run, including two tries from Kelly, to take home their seventh consecutive “World Cup” trophy at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver, Canada.

“I think we did play a full 80 minutes today,” said Cal junior Jake Anderson. “It was a full team effort. It was a great team effort.”

The Bears were led individually by Anderson, who accounted for 18 points with his leg — 12 points on penalty kicks, and six points on conversions. “It felt good, I struck the ball well,” he said.

Kelly was complimentary of the play of his teammate. “We joking call him the iceman,” he said. “Because he always makes the important kicks for us.”

Sunday’s match was the second between the North American squads this season. In the first meeting, on Feb. 16, the Bears came away with a 28-18 win.

The first 40 minutes on Sunday were also close, as the two teams traded penalty kicks. Cal’s Jake Anderson converted three, while UBC’s Brock Staller converted two, giving the Bears a 9-6 advantage at halftime.

A converted try by Kelly, six minutes into the second half, gave the Bears a 16-6 lead. Cal then got a try from Jack O’Beirne, a penalty from Anderson, and then tries from Jared Braun and Kelly to round out the scoring.

In the two-match series between Cal and UBC, that began in 1921, the team finishing with the most points scored, wins the “World Cup” trophy. UBC last won the overall season series in 2006.

Sunday’s win extended the Bears’ consecutive win streak over the Thunderbirds to eight matches.

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