Top-ranked Saint Mary’s welcomed No. 18 UC Davis to Moraga, CA, this past Saturday for a California Conference matchup that was supposed to see the visiting Aggies push the high-flying Gaels.

Instead, it turned into a clinic by the hosts.

By winning 78-0, Saint Mary’s put to bed any thought that anyone in the California Conference is close to the Gaels and showed that even in torrential rain, or hail, or wind, or gloom of night, the Moraga university kids will move the ball with alacrity and will keep scoring.

Saint Mary’s plays fast — very fast. What that means is that every player who goes into contact presents the ball well. The first player over the ball hits someone hard. Rarely is the ball slow getting out of the ruck, but when it is, the halfbacks have hard runners coming in close, or far away, to get everything moving forward again.

How Saint Mary's Works The Phases:

“That the way we practice,” SMC head coach Tom O’Brien said. “We practice the way we like to play, and we play the way we practice.”

Saint Mary’s dominated possession and held the better of the territory. The Gaels stole four lineups from the Aggies, who almost never had a good ball to work with during their tough afternoon in Moraga.

“We’re trying to push (the) tempo,” O’Brien said. “And we put them under constant pressure.”

FloRugby put SMC junior Sean Yacoubian on the list of top 20 scrumhalves in D1A and it’s a fair listing. However, O'Brien is also high on backup Tom Brusati. 

“Sean is very vertical, a bull in a china shop, and then you bring in Tom Brusati who is all go,” O’Brien said.

In this game, Mike McCarthy was subbed out to rest, and Yacoubian slid out to flyhalf. He did well, kept the tempo going, and when there wasn’t much on offer, he just went upfield. And the same was true of others, including prop Payton Telea-Ilaio, wing Charlie Loudon (who scored four times), and the easily-overlooked and multi-skilled Aaron Matthews.

The forwards and the backs link nicely, and Saint Mary’s grabbed the California Conference by the throat. So far, nothing the Gaels have done makes you doubt their No. 1 ranking. They have BYU and Cal still on the docket before the D1A playoffs, and those games could easily become losses, prompting a rankings shift. But until then, Saint Mary’s just keeps playing fast.

Saint Mary’s 78

Tries: T. Wallace, Loudon 4, Barton, M. Wallace 2, Telea-Ilaio, Se. Yacoubian, Rodriguez

Convs: McCarthy 5, Se. Yacoubian 4

UC Davis 0