Cal's winning streak in the contest for the Scrum Axe stretched to 15 with the rugby Bears' 74-0 blanking of the Stanford Cardinal this afternoon in Palo Alto.

Nine different ruggers accounted for Cal's 12 tries, including senior Blaine Scully who scored a first-half hat trick. Sophomore Seamus Kelly got himself a two-fer in the early going while senior Tom Rooke scored back-to-back tries in the second stanza.

Also crossing the tryline were seniors Derek Asbun, Sean Gallinger and Dustin Muhn, junior Danny Barrett and freshman Jake Anderson.

Conversion duty was largely split between senior James Bailes and junior Alex Aronson, though booting wasn't the Bears' strong point today.  Only seven attempts to thread the posts were successful, the second-worst performance of Cal's pre-season. The Bears averaged a 67 percent conversion ratio going into today's match.

Today's win keeps the Bears undefeated in ten outings,. All told, they've outscored their opponents by an average 46 points per match. Still, the ruggers' scoring pace is about 20 percent slower than recent seasons. 

There's still time to tune up before the meter drops on the College Premier League (CPL) season, though. The Bears meet Division II powerhouse Cal Maritime on Feb. 9 before squaring off against CPL Western Conference sides Wyoming and Air Force in the Las Vegas Invitational Tournament.

CPL action commences March 5 when Cal takes on the San Diego State Aztecs down south. SDSU hasn't fared well in its pre-season contests, losing by an average 25 points to Arizona State and BYU.

[NOTE: Cal's reserve side defeated Stanford's seconds 128-0 as a prelude to the Scrum Axe game;  today's matches were part of the debut season of Cal alum and former assistant coach Matt Sherman as helmsman of the Cardinal].