After missing the playoffs last season by one spot, the ASU men’s rugby team set its sights on a run at a national championship for this season. The team will see if it is ready Sunday to compete with the nation’s top teams when it opens up the 2012 season against last year’s national champion, the No. 1 Cal Golden Bears.
It will be a big challenge for the Sun Devils, who are going against a Bears team that is currently on a 53-game winning streak that spans three seasons. The last time the two squads met was in 2005, when Cal shut out the Sun Devils 38–0.
The Sun Devils are looking to prove themselves and practiced hard this week to prepare themselves for the competition.
“We've taken it more seriously, we know what we’re up against,” sophomore Adam Sandstrom said. “We know that they're defending champions, we know they're going to be a good team, that they're going to put out a good product.”
ASU hasn’t played a game since their 57–15 preseason win against Claremont on Jan. 21. The long break gave the players extra time to prepare for their battle with Cal.
“It’s helped — during the regular season, we only get a week off,” Sandstrom said. “It helps a lot, it really lets us sit down, analyze what we need to do, what we think we need to work on (and) what didn't work so well in the last game.”
Having quality leaders who help maintain focus and keep everyone on track will be vital to the Sun Devils’ success this week.
“The best way you can lead by example is just showing up to practice every day (and) doing what you need to do, do the work, don't complain about it, and everyone else will follow,” senior Zach Utley said. “Everyone else is going to work hard.”
The main focus for the Sun Devils will be getting the offense going against one of the nation’s top defenses. In their seven games this year, the Cal defense has yet to allow an opposing offense to score more than seven points in a single game and has only given up a total of 15 points on the year.
“We’re going to have to play clean, so it’s going to be about ball presentation, and when we take contact, we’re going to have to get in underneath them,” Utley said. “If we get high, were going to get stood up, held up and the ball is going to get turned over.”
On the other side of the ball, the Sun Devils will have to find a way to slow down the high-powered Cal offense. The Golden Bears’ offense averages 85 points per game this season, scoring as many as 109 points when they beat Stanford 109–0 last weekend.
“We want to be very quick on defense,” coach Gary Lane said. “We’ve got to be very quick up and very aggressive on the defensive structure.”
ASU’s highly anticipated battle is Sunday at the Soccer Stadium at 1 p.m.
Reach the reporter at talopez3@asu.edu
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