Men's Rugby | 4/16/2016 3:47:00 PM

SALT LAKE CITY, UT (April. 16) – For the third straight year the Central Washington University men's rugby team played the University of Utah in the quarterfinal round of the Varsity Cup. With a 58-5 win Saturday afternoon, the Wildcats advance to their fourth straight semifinals of the Penn Mutual Varsity Cup and will face off with the University of California in Berkeley, Calif. next Saturday, Apr. 23.

Before the Wildcats could gain any momentum in the contest they had to overcome a bit of adversity as they received three yellow cards and played the 15's match with just 12 players for nearly seven minutes of the first half.

The Wildcats lost three players from the front row and coach Pacheco had to mix and match subs until his penalized players were able to return to action.

"I really commend our guys for playing fantastic defense against a quality opponent when we were down a few members in the first half," CWU Head Coach Tony Pacheco said.  "It was a gutsy gutsy performance by the 12 who were on the field.  We have to be better with our discipline, so we do not put ourselves in these types of situations."
 
Aladdin Schirmer began the scoring frenzy that saw seven different players score a try. Clint Lemkus punched in the second try of the day to give the Wildcats at 14-0 lead.
 
At halftime the score read 26-0 in favor of the Wildcats.

"It was just a matter of us getting our hands on the ball," Pacheco added.  "For the first 20 minutes we defended the entire time, and were in survival mode.  When we were able to get back to full strength and get our hands on the ball, we carried very well.  There was a lot of support all over the field and were able to maintain possession and score tries,"
 
Scott Dean would add his second try of the day to start the second half. Freshman prop Derise Fuga pitched in with his first try of the match as the Wildcats extend their lead to 37-0. Dominic Lindstrom scored his second try of the match in the second half to give him two on the day, and four tries in two games.
 
Dean concluded the match with his third try of the day to give the fly half a hat trick.

Central Washington and California will now face each other for the second time in the last three Varsity Cup tournaments and coach Pacheco and his team are thrilled to be moving on to the semifinals.

"We are excited to go down and play a good squad and we are excited to get our chance.  Witter Rugby Field is a great place to play and we are looking forward to the challenge."
 
Scoring Breakdown
Tries
Scott Dean -3
Dominic Lindstrom -2
Clint Lemkus -1
Derise Fuga -1
Beau Davis -1
Ian Wright 1
 
Conversions
Reuben Ludick -4