HERRIMAN \u2014 With a push and a dive toward the try line, Paul Lasike left his mark on Utah’s first professional rugby outfit the same way he has since he became the Utah Warriors’ first signing in 2018.<\/p>\n
The center from Auckland, New Zealand, by way of BYU dotted one down one more time for the club that has given him so much \u2014 including a second pro career after a couple of years in the NFL with the Arizona Cardinals and Chicago Bears that eventually took him to England’s Harlequins<\/a>.<\/p>\n Not every career has a fairy tale ending. But for Lasike, this was as close his professional rugby career would come to one \u2014 at least, on this night.<\/p>\n “I didn’t care what it took, I was going to try and act like I was 30 again,” the 35-year-old center quipped.<\/p>\n “It was special,” he added with a bit more solemnity. “It was really good to kind of get a little taste of that and remind myself that there’s still a bit left in the tank. It was a good cherry on top of my career.”<\/p>\n Lasike’s late-match try in the 76th minute was a highlight to remember in the Utah Warriors’ 33-19 loss to the Houston Sabercats in Major League Rugby’s western conference final Saturday night.<\/p>\n AJ Alatimu scored 13 points for the Sabercats, including a first-half try that helped turn a 7-5 edge into a 33-5 advantage with a brutal run over the middle of the game.<\/p>\n Houston (11-8) advanced to next week’s MLR Championship in Providence, Rhode Island, where the Sabercats will face East winners New England at 12 p.m. MDT Saturday at Centreville Bank Stadium.<\/p>\n Houston was simply more focused, more physical, and more punishing than Utah (11-6), the MLR top seed that was hosting a conference final for the first time in franchise history with a sold-out Zions Bank Stadium and a first-of-its-kind ESPN television audience originating from the wind-swept western edge of the Salt Lake Valley.<\/p>\n “When Houston wins the physical battle, they generally win the game. They won the physical battle today,” said Utah coach Greg Cooper of Houston, which scored off a pair of turnovers through Tautalatasii Tasi and former LSU wide receiver Drake Davis. “We couldn’t get our maul working against them, and that’s been a dominant feature all year. They held it; they were superb.<\/p>\n “They took their chances, too. We gifted them a few, certainly; but when you’re not quite winning that physical battle against them, you tend to come in second \u2014 and that’s what happened.”<\/p>\n Few places was that front-line dominance more proven than the 66th minute, when Seth Smith powered over the try line after a series of bruising pushes up the middle to stretch the lead to 33-5.<\/p>\n But Lasike’s late try \u2014 as well as a game-ending score from Tu Vugakoto in the 80th minute for the final margin \u2014 offered a lasting memory for the 5,000-strong “Ohana” supporters and the Warriors, one of the founding members of MLR that signed Lasike as the franchise’s first player and now see him depart to be Southern Virginia’s head coach<\/a> in the fall.<\/p>\n