EARLY EDITION
The Senate is debarking on an international excursion Sunday evening and may not have as much Internet and editing time as usual in the next week. It became a priority to get HP out over the ether without waiting for the match reports to come in.
We encourage the referees who did games this past weekend to submit reports as usual; they will be compiled and published next week.
SLUGFEST
Eight women’s college teams participated in the Slugfest at UC Santa Cruz: the hosts, Humboldt State, Chico State, Nevada – Reno, Sacramento State, UC Davis, Cal Poly and UCLA.
Northern California was shown to best advantage on the day. In fact, the weather was so nice that Planet Earth was shown to best advantage. Not only was it delightful before nine AM, the zephyrs wafting up from the Monterey Bay were warm. There was never a drop of dew on the early morning grass, so clearly the atmospheric pressure was high.
When your writer reluctantly got into the Pelicanmobile to leave the hillside campus at 5 PM the in-dash thermometer read 85 degrees, the car having been parked in the shade all day.
The Pelican crew consisted of Joe Androvich, Paul Berman, Larry Freitas, Bjorn Stumer and Bruce Carter.
The Wolfpack had to leave Reno at 4 AM for their first-round match against Sac State, who slept in and didn’t hit the road until 4:30. The extra sleep seemed to help as the Sac Staters pulled it out.
There were two pools of four. As fate would have it, the last two scheduled games came down to the four undefeated teams: Sac State and Chico State, Humboldt State and the Slugs.
Joe Androvich refereed both of these games, back to back, after having done two games earlier. It was then announced that the winners of these would play a previously-unannounced final.
Joe looked at the assigner, who had taken himself out of the mix due to footsoreness, and said, “I’m beat.” The assigner, his feet suddenly feeling better at the prospect of a late-career tournament final, rose to the occasion:
CHICO STATE 31 – Humboldt State 7 Referee: Bruce Carter
The Chico State backs ran free after some repeat-infringement offside at ruck by HSU was sorted out not five minutes into the match.
The handling and support running was very good by both teams, leading to lots of long forays across the acreage. Chico State simply had more runners who could make the tacklers miss.
OTHER GAMES
UC DAVIS 41 – Humboldt State 10 Referee: Chris Tucker
Referee Coach: Mike Malone
An energetic, entertaining game that was played in good spirit by the two teams throughout. UC Davis pack provided them with a strong platform to move forwards, even scoring 2 tries with men in the sin bin. The first walk of shame was for a dangerous tackle, and the second as early-season sloppiness required a card for repeatedly entering the tackle / ruck from the side. Neither of these detracted from a solid home team victory, enjoyed in the warm Davis sunshine by at least a half dozen Pelicans as well as a reasonable crowd of partisans.
UC Davis 2 – UC Santa Cruz Referee: Roberto Santiago
Referee Coach: David Williamson
San Jose State women – Stanford 2 Referee: John Pohlman
St. Mary’s – Cal Referee: Anna McMahan
Assessor: Bryan Porter
Andrew Mittry Memorial Tournament
Redding, Calif.
Crenshaw, Pattalock, Gray, Ulibarri, Guy Walsh
Sunday:
Stanford – Santa Clara Referee: Joe Androvich
Seconds: Stanford – Santa Clara Referee: Sandy Robertson
Maritime Academy Intra-squad match Referee: Mike Villierme
WELCOME ABOARD
JC Van Staden has received a visa that will allow him to stay indefinitely in this great nation.
In so doing he became the first winemaker to have achieved this status, which is passionately desired by tens of millions of people all around the world.
In fact, of people who voluntarily emigrate from any country to any other, and there are more than 200 countries, about 90% move to the United States of America.
JC writes, “Basically, they declared me an expert in what I’m doing, because of all the accolades and honors I have received in the last 4 years, and for that, I’m considered an asset to the USA.”
Not to mention the rugby players who will benefit from his expertise on the pitch.
We congratulate JC most heartily and hope that he will one day become a citizen.
THIS WEEK’S PHOTO
From a USA government website:
The O visa allows individuals who have “extraordinary ability” in the sciences, arts, education, business, or sports to come to the U.S. temporarily to work in their field.
The O haircut celebrates the attainment of same.
The Good Birds, of course, add a touch of fair fortune on top of all of the hard work that brought JC Van Staden this far.
HAIL, PELICUS!
For the Senate
Pelicus Scriptoris
