Cal Wins Its First National Rugby Title Since 2017

Cal won a national college rugby 15s championship for the first time since 2017 and for the 29th time overall by knocking off Life University 55-38 in the 2025 D1A National Collegiate Championship match Saturday in Indianapolis.

The Bears (15-1) have now won 27 College Rugby Association of America D1A college rugby 15s national championships and two Varsity Cup titles, which are considered national championships. (The Bears’ 2016 and 2017 Varsity Cup titles were achieved when Cal and several other prominent rugby schools broke away from Division 1A Rugby for a few years.)

Cal's most recent College Rugby Association of America national championship came in 2011, and the Bears have lost in the title game three times since then, the most recent being 2023, when Cal lost to Navy.

Cal lost to Life in the national championship match in both 2018 and 2019, but the Bears dominated the final 18 minutes on Saturday to walk away with the win in the highest-scoring national championship match in history.

Life, a chiropractic and wellness college located in Marietta, Georgia, is ranked No. 1 in the country, according to the Goff Rugby Report. And the Running Eagles used their physical superiority to score on a rolling maul to take a 38-36 lead with 18 minutes left in the match.  It was the third time Life had used a rolling maul to score tries in Saturday’s match.

However, Cal dominated play from that point in a game that featured nine lead changes.

Oliver Newell scored the try that put Cal ahead to stay.  Newell was on the ground with an injury during that Cal possession, but he arose to score a try that put the Bears ahead 41-38 with about 12 minutes to go.  Filip Edstrom added the conversion to make it 43-38.

Three minutes later Joe Kirsten became the eighth different Cal play to score when he recorded a try to increase Cal’s lead to 50-38.

The Golden Bears clinched the victory with about three minutes left when Masi Koi scored a try that put the al lead at 55-38 after the conversion.

Koi was the only Cal player to score two tries, and his first try was a thing of beauty.

Cal held a 31-26 halftime lead  and Koi pushed the Cal advantage to 36-26 a minute into the second half with a nifty chip ahead that he scooped up and carried over the try line.

Life then scored 12 straight points to regain the lead 38-36 before Cal used its skill and precision to score the final three ties of the match.

Cal Women Fall Short

Cal’s club women’s rugby squad reached the championship match of the women’s rugby 7s Challenger Cup in Indianapolis on Saturday, but again the Bears lost to Stanford 19-7.

The Cardinal beat the Cal women in the Division I women’s 15 rugby national championship match last month, and the Cardinal beat its Bay Area rival again in this rugby 7s contest, which preceded the men’s 15 championship match.

Cal beat Cal Poly 22-21 in Saturday’s semifinal to reach the title match, and the Bears scored first against Stanford to take a 7-0 lead in the final.  But the Cardinal did all the scoring after that to take the Challenger Cup.