St. Mary’s produced an impressive run of results in winning the Cal Poly West Coast 7s Saturday.

The 14-team tournament provided some challenges for the organizations, but Cal Poly came up with a smart schedule that had two pools of seven teams. Each team played three games each, with teams that didn’t have a game to play, crossing over to play a team in the opposite pool.

In addition, no pool game was allowed to end in a tie, leaving the teams easier to seed after pool play.

After pool play, St. Mary’s was the only team in Pool 2 to emerge 3-0. Meanwhile in Pool 1 Cal and Cal Poly both ended 3-0. However, Cal Poly took the pool on the tiebreaker.

Second place in Pool 2 was also a tight one, with Arizona State, UCLA, and Cal’s 2 ^nd team, the Bears, at 2-1. ASU won that tiebreaker.

That set up Cal Poly against Arizona State in one semi and St. Mary’s against Cal in the other.

Cal Poly rolled past ASU to make the final, while Cal and St. Mary’s engaged in a classic. Cal went ahead early and led at halftime. St. Mary’s ran into some injury trouble. USA U20 wing Kingsley McGowan missed that game with a knee injury, and Bubba Jones went off in that game with a knock. Meanwhile Kelly Harris had to leave to get stitches for a nasty cut.

But a yellow card against Cal helped change the momentum. St. Mary’s tied it up, and the Garrett Brewer snaked around the outside to score the winner in the corner – 17-12 St. Mary’s.

In the final, Cal Poly ran out to a 19-7 first-half lead. But St. Mary’s straightened out their defensive issues and ran in four converted tries to win 35-19.

Along the way, Lloyd Evans and Tim Maupin stepped up and Brewer was outstanding – scoring tries and kicking conversions. Coaches Tony Samaniego and Mark Bass gave kickoff duties to another to allow Brewer to be the aerial man on restarts, and that move paid off.

“Our defensive pattern and organization was a big part of our play,” said St. Mary's 7s team advisor Tyler. “I told the guys we had as good athletes any anyone, but to win we needed to use our brains more, and they did.”

Cal went on to beat Arizona State 40-7 to take third. Meanwhile the Cal 2 ^nd team won their playoff games to win the consolation bracket.