Wasatch Cup 2010: BYU Kicks Its Way to Win

Provo, UT–The BYU Cougars beat their rival Utah today by the score of 15 to 10 in front of a sold out South Field crowd.

The win for the Cougars was a tryless affair with all 15 points coming on the boot of Shaun Davies. Meanwhile, Utah’s points came from two tries which the Utes never converted.

But it was the weather that was the story of the weekend. With six inches covering South Field only 30 hours before kickoff the BYU grounds crew worked their magic to prepare the field for today’s much-anticipated Wasatch Cup match.

With the field still wet underfoot the ball and footing of the players gave both teams trouble. With the conditions both teams reverted to a straight forward attack and kicking game that at times slowed the pace of the game down considerably. But in the end too many penalties inside the Utah half gave BYU the opportunities they need to win the game.

“It wasn’t a pretty game by any means,” said BYU assistant coach Kimball Kjar, “We had to really work in attack and we held our own in the kicking game I thought. So in the end I was pleased with the outcome.”

Despite his team’s outcome Utah head coach Blake Burdette said today’s Wasatch Cup meeting was one of the more memorable in the history of the rivalry.

“These were two evenly matched teams,” he said, “It was a great game, but we just came up short and it’s unfortunate the ball didn’t bounce our way in the end.”

The Utes were in decisive control in the last 10 minutes of the game pressuring the Cougars and living off of the BYU mistakes. In fact, BYU was in possession of the ball in the 79th minute of the game after a Utah penalty but a Cougar turn over gave the Utes a chance to tie or win the game.

Unfortunately, a subsequent Utah penalty for holding the ball in the ruck gave BYU the win and the 2010 Wasatch Cup.

“We played okay today,” said BYU captain Dylan Lubbe, “We had a lot of mistakes, but we found a way to win and that’s all that matters right now.”

The Cougars now garner the overall #1 seed into the USA Rugby collegiate playoffs with the win and will look to Santa Barbara, CA for their opening playoff round against the yet-to-be-determined Mid-Atlantic #2 seed.

In the first half of the game the run of possession and territory was largely controlled by the Cougars.  With the pressure, and three Utah penalties, Davies notched three penalty goals to push the BYU lead to 9-0 by the 25th minute.

But handling errors and some forced turnovers put Utah right on the BYU tryline.

A wide pass from Utah flyhalf Thretton Palamo gave Chase Jardine an easy try out wide. An unsuccessful conversion let the Cougars go into halftime with a 9-5 lead.

Conversely, the second half was largely controlled by Utah as 12 BYU second half penalties continually undermined the Cougars’ efforts. Utah however, was only able to capitalize one time with a try off a Utah lineout only meters from the BYU tryline in the 64th minute.

But another missed conversion proved unlucky for Utah and BYU still held a 12-10 lead.

As time wound down Davies would take three more long shots at goal only converting on one of them. But it was enough as the Utah penalty in injury time gave the Cougars a fifth straight Wasatch Cup win.

Despite not being able to recall when the last time that his Cougars weren’t able to score a try in a BYU win, head coach David Smyth said he was pleased with the ending.

“I’m always happy with a win against Utah,” he said, “We had to really fight for this one. It wasn’t our most accurate performance, but sometimes you don’t get into the endzone and our guys figured out what it took to win this game. Now we move forward and build for the playoffs.”

The Cougars next face their cross-town rival Utah Valley University in a Friday night fixture. And then 2008 semifinalist the University of Colorado comes to town for an afternoon kickoff the next day. Both games are slated for South Field.

The latter match against Colorado match will be broadcast live on BYU-TV.

BYU 1st XV vs. Utah

1. Mikey Su’a
2. Joey Mount
3. Ray Forrester
4. TJ Allred
5. Mark Bonham
6. Moana Hafoka (Ishmael Tilialo @ 65″)
7. Hynie Leaatoa
8. Ryan Roundy
9. Shaun Davies
10. Dylan Lubbe
11. Lelan Latu
12. Tupu Folau
13. Viliami Vimahi
14. Ryan Blaser
15. Andrew Harrison

Scoring:

BYU–15

Tries: NA

Conversions: NA

Penalties: Davies (10″, 19″, 22″, 54″, 73″)

UTAH–10

Tries: Jardine 29″, Kimball 64″

Conversions: NA

Penalties: NA