Having two weeks to retool after losing their 2024 opener to St. Mary's College of California, the Grand Canyon University Men's Rugby team turned a one-score match at halftime into a dominant 57-0 victory over archrival Arizona State University Saturday afternoon at GCU Soccer Stadium on the GCU campus in Phoenix. It was the first time that the two archrivals had met in the regular season since 2018, and it was the Lopes' 3^rd straight regular season win in the series.

The stingy Lopes' defense was constant throughout the match, only allowing the Sun Devils to get close to the try zone more than a couple of times. That was especially beneficial in the first half as the ASU defense was nearly equal to the task, allowing a single Lopes' try to Jackson Gray in the first 40 minutes of play.
 
"We just needed to relax a little, since we were trying to force the game in that 1^st half," said Lopes' Head Coach Sean O'Leary. "Give credit to ASU, too, since they were very physical and forced us into mistakes."
 
That changed quickly after halftime as the Lopes took the opening kickoff and marched down the pitch, cashing in on Jesse Emerson's try in the 45^th minute. From there, the floodgates opened as GCU spent the rest of the match in Sun Devils' territory, scoring three more tries in the next 12 minutes. In fact, the Lopes scored eight tries in the second half alone, never letting more than eight minutes pass in-between trips to the try zone.
 
Eight different Lopes found the try zone among the nine scores, led by freshman back Ben Saunders, who scored twice, and was one of four different GCU freshmen (the others being Dakota Toler, Gene Kendall and Nigel Johnson) to post a five-spot on the scoreboard. Saunders also went 6-for-9 on two-point conversion kicks.
 
"I was very pleased with the balance of our scoring, since it shows the selflessness of our players in going about their business," said O'Leary. "We still have much work to do for our next game. I want to see us be more accurate in our scrum and lineout, and definitely reduce the number of penalties conceded."
 
The Lopes will have another two weeks in-between home matchups as they prep for the University of Utah, who will come to the GCU campus to battle GCU on Saturday, February 3. Kickoff is scheduled for noon at the GCU Practice Soccer Field.