{"id":136634,"date":"2026-01-16T20:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T20:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136634\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T20:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T20:16:13","slug":"cal-heads-to-dennis-storer-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/136634\/","title":{"rendered":"Cal Heads to Dennis Storer Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__byline\">RUGBY1\/16\/2026 9:00 AM | By: Cal Athletics<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t&#13;<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__subheadline\">Bears Travel to L.A. To Take on Fresno State and UCLA Saturday<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tLOS ANGELES \u2013 California rugby will travel to Los Angeles for the annual Dennis Storer Classic on Saturday, hosted by UCLA. The Bears will take on Fresno State at 11:30 a.m. PT, before playing the hosting Bruins at 2 p.m. PT. Both matches will take place at the Athletics Fields North with single-day tickets available for fans to purchase at the front entrance.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe tournament returns after a one-year hiatus due to the Pacific Palisades fire, and is named after the late Dennis Storer, the former longtime head coach of the Bruins. The early season event provides for abbreviated matches between six college teams: UCLA, USC, Loyola Marymount, UC San Diego, Fresno State and Cal.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Bears will send two different lineups into the Saturday fixtures, with the entire travel party anticipating to see playing minutes on the pitch.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nLast Saturday, the Bears opened their 2026 spring season with a dominating victory over Cal Poly. Nine different Bears scored in the victory, while <a href=\"https:\/\/calbears.com\/sports\/mens-rugby\/roster\/max-threlkeld\/25343\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"25343\" target=\"_blank\">Max Threlkeld<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/calbears.com\/sports\/mens-rugby\/roster\/filip-edstrom\/25399\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"25399\" target=\"_blank\">Filip Edstrom<\/a> scored three tries each. Edstrom also converted 13 conversion attempts.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nCal will first play Fresno State at 11:30 a.m. PT on Saturday. This will be the first time in recent history that Cal and Fresno State have contested an XVs match, with the last time the two programs met being at the 2021 WCC7s tournament at Cal Poly. The Bears defeated the Bulldogs 19-12 en route to winning the tournament trophy.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nThe Bears will close out the trip against UCLA at 2 p.m. PT on Saturday. Cal and UCLA last met for 15-a-side action on Feb. 8 last season, with the Bears coming away with a 36-7 victory. 2026 returners <a href=\"https:\/\/calbears.com\/sports\/mens-rugby\/roster\/cade-crist\/25312\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"25312\" target=\"_blank\">Cade Crist<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/calbears.com\/sports\/mens-rugby\/roster\/rand-santos\/25380\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"25380\" target=\"_blank\">Rand Santos<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/calbears.com\/sports\/mens-rugby\/roster\/cormac-saint\/25337\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"25337\" target=\"_blank\">Cormac Saint<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/calbears.com\/sports\/mens-rugby\/roster\/jack-byszio\/25395\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"25395\" target=\"_blank\">Jack Byszio<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/calbears.com\/sports\/mens-rugby\/roster\/max-threlkeld\/25343\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"25343\" target=\"_blank\">Max Threlkeld<\/a> all scored tries in the contest, while Saint added four conversions.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nFor UCLA, Cal will lean on key starters <a href=\"https:\/\/calbears.com\/sports\/mens-rugby\/roster\/oliver-kirk\/25403\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"25403\" target=\"_blank\">Oliver Kirk<\/a> and Crist in the front row. <a href=\"https:\/\/calbears.com\/sports\/mens-rugby\/roster\/miles-malone\/25368\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"25368\" target=\"_blank\">Miles Malone<\/a> will rotate into the second row and <a href=\"https:\/\/calbears.com\/sports\/mens-rugby\/roster\/chris-biller\/25394\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"25394\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Biller<\/a> will get his first start as a flanker. In the backs, the Williams to Santos halfback pairing is likely to get the nod again with standout center Edstrom at the core of everything.<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\nSTAY POSTED\u00a0<br \/>\nFor complete coverage of Cal rugby, please follow the Bears on X\/Twitter (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CalVarsityRugby\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@CalVarsityRugby<\/a>), Instagram (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/calvarsityrugby\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@CalVarsityRugby<\/a>) and Facebook (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CalVarsityRugby\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">\/CalVarsityRugby<\/a>).\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>\n\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; RUGBY1\/16\/2026 9:00 AM | By: Cal Athletics &#13; &#13; Bears Travel to L.A. To Take on Fresno&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136635,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":{"0":"post-136634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fresno","8":"tag-fresno","9":"tag-fresno-headlines","10":"tag-fresno-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}