Cats Beat Cal on a Hail Mary; en Español: Ave Maria 49-45

By Francisco Romero.-

Borrowing a quote from the greatest broadcaster who has ever lived, Vin Scully (Dodgers), I will say the following regarding the Arizona Wildcats win over California: “In a game that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”

Picture Courtesy of Arizona Athletics

There is no other way to describe how the Wildcats were able to beat the Golden Bears Saturday night at Arizona Stadium on a 47-yard pass from Anu Solomon to Austin Hill.

Cal (2-1, 0-1 Pac-12) had a 22-point lead at half time and led 31-16 going into the 4^th quarter.   

Arizona (4-0, 1-0 Pac-12) looked like a different team during the second half of the game it outscored Cal 43-17.

With 3:30 to go Arizona scored on a 6 yard run by Terris Jones-Grigsby making the score 45-37 still in favor of Cal; Arizona recovered an onside kick and with 2:44 to go scored on a 15 yard pass from Solomon to Cayleb Jones cutting the score to 45-43. 

Cal had a chance to seal the win on the following possession but, James Langford missed a 47 yard field goal attempt; Arizona recovered the football and with the clock at 0:00 Austin Hill caught the 47-yard Hail Mary in the end zone to seal the win for the Wildcats 49-45.

“I was at the right place at the right time,” Said Austin Hill after the game,  “Awesome offensive team effort,” he added.

Quarterback Anu Solomon finished the game completing 47 of 73 passes for 520 yards.

Head Coach Rich Rodriguez said he will enjoy the victory for the next couple days, but mentioned that there is a lot that will be worked on before the next game, “the thing that hurt us was that we were not finishing drives, we kicked three field goals and we were not executing well at times.”

Arizona’s next game will be at Oregon on Saturday October 2^nd.