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Women's Soccer
California's Arielle Ship and Samantha Witteman added to their impressive 2015 award hauls Friday when they were named National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA) All-Americans, the organization announced.
Men's Swimming and Diving
Senior Josh Prenot laid down a national-best time in the 200-yard individual medley and the 400 medley relay followed suit with a top time of its own as the Cal men's swimming team kicked off competition on the first of three days at the Georgia Fall Invitational.
Women's Swimming and Diving
The California women's swimming & diving program dominated the 100 butterfly on Friday, highlighting a terrific day for the Golden Bears at the USA Swimming Winter Nationals.
"Hail to California"
(Shoutout to Ohio Bear for the awesome name of the play)
GREEN BAY, Wis. - Before every game, in the final practice of the week, coach Mike McCarthy runs the Green Bay Packers through a drill he calls, "The last eight plays."
The Hail Mary, of course, is always one of them.
But for his team, it isn't an offensive drill.
"We've had a few go against us," McCarthy said without mentioning the 2012 Fail Mary game in Seattle. "So we've kind of made it a defensive play."
At half-speed because, as McCarthy said, "you don't want somebody going up and getting hurt on a Hail Mary play 24 hours before you play," the Packers' defense bats the ball to the ground - what they should have done in Seattle.
On Thursday night against the Detroit Lions, with their season on the brink of ruin, the Packers came up with one of the most memorable moments in franchise history. Aaron Rodgers ' 61-yard game-winning touchdown heave to tight end Richard Rodgers with all zeros on the clock was the longest game-winning, game-ending Hail Mary pass in NFL history.
Here's how it happened:
DETROIT -- What started out as Aaron Rodgers and Richard Rodgers goofing around before the game wound up helping the Green Bay Packers at the end of the game.
Little did they know at the time, of course. But on a whim, the quarterback and tight end went out to the field before the start of official pregame warmups and started playing catch, with Aaron Rodgers throwing high, arcing passes to Richard Rodgers just for fun.
Then, when it counted, on the final play of the game, the quarterback's ceiling-scraping 61-yard Hail Mary touchdown pass to his tight end gave the Packers an improbable 27-23 victory Thursday night.
"In the pre-pregame warmups, I was out there messing around and I threw kind of some moonballs to Richard, as high as I could," Aaron Rodgers explained afterward. "Not 60 yards in the air, but he caught two out of three. So I'm glad he made it three out of four."
Richard Rodgers Sr. says son's Hail Mary catch topped his role in 'The Play'
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Richard Rodgers Sr. had bragging rights over his son for his role in "The Play," which gave Cal an unlikely victory over Stanford in 1982 with the Cardinal band on the field.
Then came the final two plays of the Green Bay Packers' Thursday night victory over the Detroit Lions.
First, Richard Rodgers II -- otherwise known as "Biggie" among family members -- threw the lateral to Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers that led to a face-mask penalty as time expired.
Then Rodgers, a 6-foot-4 tight end, caught the second-chance, game-winning, 61-yard Hail Mary pass.
"He had [the lateral] and he caught the winning touchdown," said the father, an assistant defensive backs coach for the Panthers. "I think he got me."
Rodgers Sr. was Cal's special teams captain in that 1982 game against Stanford. He called "The Play" in the huddle, then was the second and fourth player to lateral the ball on the five-lateral kickoff return for a game-winning touchdown as the Stanford band came onto the field.
"It's the complete scenario," Rodgers Sr. said when explaining why his son's play was bigger. "If you look at it from my perspective, Rodgers throws it to Rodgers, not Aaron to Richard but Richard to Aaron, to start the whole thing. The penalty gets called.
"And then Rodgers throws it back to Rodgers again. I couldn't write a better script than that."
Reminded that there have been other Hail Mary passes but no plays quite like the one with the band on the field, the elder Rodgers didn't change his mind.
"I'm sure there are some people out there that would think ... it's just a Hail Mary," he said. "But the Doug Flutie play was just a Hail Mary, too. It always rivals 'The Play.'
"Why not have my son be better than me?"
Men's Basketball
LARAMIE, Wyo. - Senior Tyrone Wallace scored 23 points and Jordan Mathews added 14 as the Golden Bears (6-2) took a 78-72 overtime win at Wyoming's Arena-Auditorium to end the Cowboys' 17-game non-conference home winning streak at the "Dome of Doom."
The Cowboys (5-3) had won seven consecutive games against Pac-12 opposition in Laramie as well as 17 consecutive non-conference games overall, but the Bears led for a majority of the game en route to the 78-72 overtime victory.
Wallace added six rebounds and six assists to his tally while Mathews scored 11 of his 14 points in overtime. Freshman Ivan Rabb went a perfect 5-of-5 from the field and 3-of-3 from the free throw line to score 13 points in just 19 minutes of action.
BEARS WIN IT IN OVERTIME! pic.twitter.com/B6Jiojmred
— Cal Men's Basketball (@CalMensBBall) December 5, 2015