Men’s Team Departing For Jax Photo Gallery. Try to find Aomke!

Womens BBall beats UC Davis:

The California Golden Bears women’s basketball team advanced to the second round of the Women’s National Invitation Tournament with a 74-69 overtime victory over the UC Davis Aggies at Haas Pavilion. Freshman forward Gennifer Brandon set an arena record with 21 rebounds.

Cal started the game shooting 80 percent in the first eight minutes, missing just two of their first 10 field goal attempts, but still found themselves trailing the Aggies 19-17. UC Davis hit five early three-pointers to earn the edge. After the game was tied at 23-23, Cal went on a run, taking the first real advantage of the game. A three-pointer by junior guard Rachelle Federico opened a 7-0 run that put the Bears up 30-23. UC Davis, continuing with their hot perimeter shooting, chipped away at the lead, coming back to take a 33-32 lead of their own with 3:06 remaining in the period. A pair of lead changes and two ties later, the Bears had the ball with 12 seconds left in the period with the game tied 36-36, but a pair of misses sent the game into the break with that same deadlocked score.

The start of the second half was the complete opposite of the first half, with both teams combining to score just seven points in the first seven and a half minutes. After the fifth lead change of the period, Dsvis drained a three to take a 46-42 lead with ten minutes left in the game. An 8-0 Davis run was halted by a trey from senior guard Lauren Greif, but the Aggies still held a 48-45 lead. The Bears pulled within two, 50-48, on a three by Layshia Clarendon. An inspired Davis team turned up the pressure, forcing turnovers and scoring on the offensive end to build up an eight point lead, 56-48. Cal got it back down to a two point deficit, 58-56, with 1:49 remaining after five straight points from Layshia Clarendon. Two huge blocks by Gennifer Brandon gave Cal the ball back, down two, 60-58. Brandon got a layup on the opposite end to tie the game. Davis took the ball down court, taking a shot and missing, with Brandon fighting for and getting the rebound with 15.7 seconds left in the game.

Womens Tennis beats Harvard:

BERKELEY – The ninth-ranked California women’s tennis team (10-3) swept all nine matches to earn a 7-0 victory over No. 51 Harvard (6-6) on Wednesday (March 17) at the Hellman Tennis Complex. The Golden Bears posted their 10th win of the season as No. 16-ranked junior Marina Cossou recorded her sixth consecutive singles victory at court two in a 6-3, 6-0 decision over Hideko Tachibana.

Cal claimed the doubles point for the 12th time this season as it swept all three courts. Sophomore Stephany Chang and freshman Annie Goransson were the first pair off the courts as they registered an 8-4 win over Caroline Davis and Alexandra Lehman at court three. Cossou and senior Kasia Siwosz sealed the point for the Bears with an 8-2 win at court two against Kristin Norton and Tachibana. Cal’s No. 6-ranked duo of junior Mari Andersson and sophomore Jana Juricova put away Holly Cao and Samantha Rosekrans at the top court in an 8-4 win to finish off Cal’s three-match sweep.

Goransson spent just an hour at court five to post her 6-0, 6-1 win over Sophie Chang to give Cal a 2-0 advantage in the match. The Bears went up, 3-0, when Stephany Chang defeated Lehman at court six, 6-1, 6-2. Cossou finished things off against Tachibana next to award the Bears with a 4-0 victory.

Mens Golf tied for 5th after National Invitational:

TUCSON – Cal ended the first day of action Wednesday at the National Invitational Tournament tied for fifth place with an 11-over par 36-hole total team score of 587 (294-293). The Bears are 18 shots behind first-day leader TCU (286-283 – 569, -7) and also trail host Arizona (293-284 – 577, +1), Texas (291-288 – 579, +3) and Baylor (289-292 – 581, +5) in the event being held at the Omni Tucson National. Cal is tied for fifth place with SMU (293-294 – 587, +11).

“All I know is that we should be a whole lot closer to par than we are right now,” said head coach Steve Desimone. “Good teams finish strong and that’s something we’ve done all year, but we sure didn’t do it today.”

Stephen Hale is the top Golden Bears individual after the first 36 holes with a one-over par score of 145 (73-72) and is six shots off the pace set by first day co-leaders Johan de Beer of TCU (68-71 – 139, -5) and Joakim Mikkelsen of Baylor (70-69 – 139, -5).

Womens BBall post game quotes:

“Very happy about the win. I am glad that we fought like we did in the second half and made some adjustments, mostly rebounding. They are a great team and we had to fight hard to get it.”

“I think the two sitting next to me (Layshia Clarendon and Gennifer Brandon), both of them. Genn had 19 (points) and 21 (rebounds). It is hard. She played 37 minutes. It was hard to go with one post player the entire game. There were times when she was exhausted. Luckily, the time outs came accordingly and she got a little bit of rest. She just had to suck it up and she did a great job with points and rebounds.”

“I wasn’t getting anything from my posts, other than Genn, so I wasn’t going to just lay down and give them the game. Whoever was going to show up and play hard was who was going to be out there. I thought Lauren (Greif) did a great job on (Paige Mintun). She is a traditional post, so for Lauren to play that kid the whole game, that was really tiring and difficult. But she did a great job and allowed other people to get easy looks. You never want to go into a game shorthanded like that, especially with Lexi (Alexis Gray-Lawson) being out, we went even more shorthanded tonight.”

On what was different the second half from the first

“They packed it in until the very end. In the beginning, they were trapping and we just sort of picked it apart. In the second half, they didn’t come out and trap until they were down and were trying to come back. They sat in that and made us shoot outside shots. We didn’t get the looks we were getting early in. And then when we were going with four guards, it was hard because it is not natural for our guards to have to be in the post position and weave an entry there, so we were just trying to run a cutter offense. After awhile I thought we settled down and got Genn some touches. And she finished. And that was good for us.”

Softball loses to something called Libscomb:

HONOLULU – The No. 12/13 California softball team began its spring break with a 1-0 loss to Lipscomb in the opening day of the Chevron Spring Fling, hosted by the University of Hawaii. This was the first meeting in program history between the Golden Bears (19-5 overall) and the Bison (20-2).

Lipscomb’s game-winning run came in the bottom of the sixth after 5.5 innings of scoreless play. The Bison began the inning with a double to right center by first baseman Kellie Sirus. Arioto got the next batter – second baseman Abby Keese – with a swinging strike out to give the Bears one out with Sirus holding still on second.

Catcher Mollie Mitchell stepped up next for the Bisons and selected the first pitch she saw from Arioto for a single up the middle, plating Sirus. Arioto struck out the next two batters – third baseman Christen Campbell looking and right fielder Caroline Mason swinging – but the damage had been done.

In the top of the seventh, Taylor Kelly was the only Bear to reach base after she earned a nine-pitch walk.

The game, which took place at the Rainbow Wahine Softball Stadium under scattered showers, saw the Bears leave four runners on base and the Bisons leave six stranded.

Lipscomb is receiving votes in both national ranking polls.

Baseball loses to Houston:

Down 7-0, the Cal baseball team made an impressive comeback with eight runs in the bottom of seventh inning, but was not able to hold on to the lead, falling 12-9 in 11 innings to visiting Houston Wednesday afternoon at Evans Diamond. The Golden Bears and the Cougars both saw their records go to 9-6. Besides Cal scoring eight runs with two outs in the seventh inning, freshman center fielder Darrel Matthews had a clutch two-out RBI triple in the bottom of the 10th inning to keep the Bears alive, 9-9, going into the 11th inning.

Cal faltered in the top of the 11th inning when Bear freshman right-hander Michael Lowden (0-1, 1.2 innings, two hits, three runs, two earned runs, one walk) gave up a lead-off walk to the Cougars’ Chris Wallace. Pinch runner Dakota Dill was sacrificed to second base and then scored on a single to left field by Matt Creel when Cal catcher Chadd Krist was unable to handle a throw from left fielder Chad Bunting at the plate. Houston added two more insurance runs when Zak Presley later hit a two-out homer over the right field fence.

The winning pitcher for the Cougars was Creel, who had moved from first base to pitch in the eighth inning (2-0, 3.2 innings, four hits, one run, two walks, one strikeout). William Kankel earned his first save of the season for Houston when he got Austin Booker to ground out in the bottom of the 11th inning.

Despite losing the game, the Bears did have an outstanding comeback in the seventh inning, scoring eight runs on seven two-out RBI (RBI double by Matthews, RBI single by junior second baseman Brian Guinn, RBI single by sophomore left fielder Danny Oh, RBI single by junior first baseman Mark Canha, RBI double by Krist, RBI double by freshman third baseman Tony Renda, go-ahead RBI single by freshman designated hitter Devin Rodriguez) off Houston relievers Mo Wiley and Codey Morehouse.

Canha, Krist, Renda, Rodriguez, Matthews and freshman right fielder Jimmy Bosco all finished two hits apiece as Cal end the day with 16 hits. Houston finished with 18 hits.

Check out a campus St. Patrick’s Day Slideshow:

DAAP is still around? Shouldn’t Hoku Jeffries and Ronald Cruz be 105 by now???

UC Berkeley’s Defend Affirmative Action Party will run four executive candidates in the 2010 ASUC general election on a platform advocating civil rights and equality for all students across race, gender, sexual orientation and socioeconomic class.

This year’s DAAP candidates are Talya Hezi for president, Maria Belman for external affairs vice president, Damien Anderson for academic affairs vice president and Jonathon Brooks for student advocate. The party is not fielding a candidate for executive vice president.

The candidates are also all running for senate seats.

Hezi said DAAP’s priorities include keeping education public, affordable and accessible, fighting for financial aid for undocumented students and eliminating the SAT requirement in UC admissions.

If elected to the presidency, Hezi said she would propose initiatives to the senate to encourage public officials to support the rights of underrepresented students, fight to overturn California’s constitutional ban on gay marriage and work toward making an attorney available during student conduct hearings.

DAAP’s candidates criticized the ASUC’s current elected officials for not taking a more active role in student advocacy efforts.

http://deadspin.com/5496451/joslyn-james-did-not-disappoint-with-her-tiger-sext-messages

Niners GM may step down…radio guy said his agent denied such allegations.

Damn, we have 174 people in our Pick Em now. Gonna be a tough year to win.

Where’s a good place to watch the Cal vs Lousy-ville game?

I’ll be in LA on Friday night – what’s a good Cal-friendly sports bar/pub/restaurant to watch the game?

Thanks!

for “best blog”,

• California Golden Blogs
• californiagoldenblogs.com
• http://www.californiagoldenblogs.com

are all choices to vote for. Which one do we choose? Or does it matter? They’ll know it’s all the same choice, right?

East Bay isn’t all that great either with Berkeley being an exception only because UCB is there.

Apparently, the Refs did not see Lexi go down last Saturday, which is why play was not stopped. They directly apologized to coach Boyle as soon as they could. This doesnt excuse them for how they reacted to the fans, but at least they weren’t letting the play go because they couldnt stop.

But, Old Dominion and ND are tied with 5 to play

Who entered “California Golden Blogs” in every category?…I put us in for best barbecue since Looney’s is awful.

I figured it would be a good time to take roll, as a Danville cub scout leader has been arrested for child porn.

Theyre gonna give em a second or two more though

Over at NetsDaily the guy who’s the last holdout at the future site of the Nets arena showed up and is trying to give me a weak legal argument about why he shouldn’t have to leave…even though his title was turned over to the development company. LINK