San Diego Legion broke a 19 all tie against NOLA Gold in the 70th minute with a try by Tai Enosa and jumped into first place in the Major League standing with the 26-19 win. The Legion has a 10-3-1 record with 52 points and NOLA Gold is 9-4 in second place with 51 points.
The race for the top four playoff spots is a tight one with six teams still in the playoff hunt. The Legion and the Arrows (48 points) have played 14 games with 2 remaining, while Seattle (46 pts), Rugby United New York (44 pts) and the Glendale Raptors (42 pts) having 3 left.
Match Recap
The San Diego Legion scored first at Gold Stadium on Saturday with Save Totovosau scoring in the corner for a 5-0 lead.
NOLA Gold answered back with a try by Cam Dolan after a lineout, with the conversion by Eloff bouncing off a post.
The Legion broke the deadlock with Mike Te’o drawing in a defender and offloading to Nick Boyer for a try and a Pietersen conversion to lead 12-5.
NOLA Gold leveled the match again at 12 all after Eric Howard offloaded to Cam Dolan to Tristan Blewett for the try.
San Diego came out strong in the second half and scored an early try from an offload by Nate Augspurger to JP Duplessis, with Pietersen slotting the kick, 19-12.
NOLA Gold answered back as Nick Feakes kicked ahead and Blewett chased, taking the ball on the bounce and evading Will Holder for the try. Gale then converted again to level the match at 19.
Tai Enosa scored the winning try as he stepped left on Ignacio Dotti and went right and in for the try with Holder converting 26-19.
San Diego has two matches remaining and will travel to Utah May 18 and then finish the regular season at home on June 2 against NOLA Gold.
NOLA Gold will play the Houston SaberCats at home next Saturday, travel to Brooklyn to face Rugby United New York on May 26, and finish against the Legion.
Squads
NOLA Gold: 1 Hubert Buydens, 2 Eric Howard (capt.), 3 Matt Harmon, 4 Kane Thompson, 5 Nikola Bursic, 6 Ignacio Dotti, 7 Zack Stryffeler, 8 Cam Dolan, 9 Holden Yungert, 10 Scott Gale, 11 Nick Feakes, 12 Con Foley, 13 Tristan Blewett, 14 Tim Maupin, 15 JP Eloff 16 Kavika Peniata, 17 Cam Falcon, 18 Kevin Sullivan, 19 Billy Stewart, 20 Moni Tonga’uiha, 21 Kevin O’Connor, 22 Michael Baska, 23 Taylor Howden
San Diego Legion: 1 Oti Pifeleti, 2 Kapeli Pifeleti, 3 Paddy Ryan, 4 Louis Stanfill, 5 Keni Nasoqeqe, 6 Psalm Wooching, 7 Jasa Veremalua, 8 Jordan Manihera, 9 Nate Augspurger, 10 Joe Pietersen (capt.), 11 Save Totovosau, 12 Conor Kearns, 13 JP du Plessis, 14 Nick Boyer, 15 Mike Te’o 16 Pat Blair, 17 Nathan Sylvia, 18 Dino Waldren, 19 Siaosi Mahoni, 20 Drew Gaffney, 21 Tai Enosa, 22 Will Holder, 23 Nick Lupian
