Published 2002-04-03T00:00:00Z”/>

Men’s Rugby

Chico State met the titans of rugby, University of California, Berkeley, in the team’s final league game March 23. The Wildcats fared well considering last season’s 97-0 thrashing. Chico lost 44-8, but UC Berkeley did rest some of its all-American players in the contest. UC Berkeley has won the national championship every year since 1990. Despite finishing the season with a 0-5 league record, Chico has reason to be excited. The team will travel to Washington, D.C., this weekend to compete in the Cherry Blossom Tournament, featuring over 30 teams from all over the United States.

The games will be played near the Washington Memorial and the reflecting pool. The Wildcats will play four games overall: two on Saturday and two on Sunday. The bad news for Chico players is they will have to pay for their own airline tickets in order to compete.

Men’s Lacrosse

The A-team played four non-division games over spring break during a road trip to southern California. Chico won convincingly against University of Southern California, UC San Diego and University of Oregon. The Wildcats lost a heartbreaker in double overtime to San Diego State for their only loss. The wins are important because Chico is trying to prove it’s worthy of Division I status, to which it was promoted three seasons ago. The Wildcats have not won a single division game in those three years, but Ben Lister thinks it’s because of the enormous talent that exists in Chico’s division. “Teams like Sonoma, Cal and Stanford are consistently ranked in the top 20 every year. If we were to move back down to Division II we would romp on teams.” Chico has a home game this weekend against Santa Clara and an away game the following weekend against UC Davis to prove the doubters wrong.