The Arizona Laxcats ended their fall preseason with a win against ASU at the Arizona Fall Brawl this past Saturday. The Laxcats played ASU and Grand Canyon University at the tournament, defeating the Sun Devils 9-5 and tying the Antelopes 5-5.

“The guys played well,” UA head coach Derek Pedrick said. “It’s a fall ball scrimmage, and it shows us that if we keep up and play well, we can play with some of the best teams in the country.”

During the first game, the Laxcats got on the board quickly with a goal from Zach Johnson. ASU followed up with a goal and played most of the game with that one goal. Arizona ended up scoring six more goals on ASU, including two goals from Austin Miller.

ASU tried to catch up during the last 10 minutes of the game by scoring four more goals on the Laxcats. During the last few minutes of the game, Hunter Gore scored his second goal of the game, and Ben Brehne scored the final goal of the game to secure the win over ASU.

For the final game of the tournament, Johnson scored two goals for the 5-5 tie against GCU.

Arizona Rugby’s preseason will be coming to a close as the UA hosts its final home game of the season against GCU on Friday night. This will be the first time Arizona plays against GCU, as the Antelopes have a new rugby program this year. Arizona will also be playing against two former UA rugby players.

GCU head coach Ryan Kelly and associate head coach Merrick Firestone both played under legendary rugby coach Dave Sitton at the UA.

“It will be a cool experience to play against those former Wildcats,” UA head coach Sean Duffy said.

For the final game of the preseason, Mason Pederson and Vinny Yackanin will not be playing, as they were invited to the Junior All-American Ruby Camp in Florida this weekend.

Last weekend, Arizona played its final tournament of the preseason at the Pac-12 Rugby Sevens Championship at Berkeley.  The team placed fifth overall and went 4-2.

During day one, Arizona beat Stanford 21-7 and USC 43-0. That same day, the UA also lost to Cal 39-0 and ASU 21-5.

Arizona went on to the semifinals, winning its last two games of the tournament, defeating Washington State 29-5 and Colorado 21-10.

“We took 12 sevens players, and nine of them were freshmen,” Duffy said. “It was a top-notch event and was great experience for the freshmen.”

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