Cal Olympic Sports Weekly Roundup

We will start our recap this week by a look at the National Championship Week celebration on campus from two weeks ago.

National Championship Week 2013:

Here is the Cal Athletics feature on all of the 2012-13 academic year National Champs:

The national championship winning athletes attend the Chancellor's Reception with outgoing chancellor Robert Birgeneau.

Hoping to join in on the National Champions celebration next year is this week's CGB Team of the Week: The No.1 Ranked Cal Men's Soccer.

Cal Men's Soccer (9-0-2, 3-0-1)

Pac-12 Men's Soccer STANDINGS

As much as the Cal Men's Soccer has had great success so far this season, one major question about the team has been how will the team fare on the road. Bears have been lucky in only having 3 road matches (with two just in the area at San Francisco and at Santa Clara) prior to this past week. They also managed to only get a draw in their lone true road trip to Penn State earlier this year. This past week saw the Bears having to make the trip down to SoCal to face conference rivals in San Diego State and No.5/6 UCLA. How will the Bears outside the friendly confines of Berkeley?

Cal 2, San Diego State 1

Ten games into his young career, California freshman Christian Thierjung has already scored two memorable goals, with the latest giving the top-ranked Golden Bears a 2-1, come-from-behind victory over San Diego State. The reserve forward scored at 79:17 at the SDSU Sports Deck to keep Cal unbeaten.

Just like his last minute heroic at San Francisco, Thierjung provided the game winner late for the Bears down at San Diego State. For the 1st time all season, the Bears trailed in a match when the Aztecs got the first goal. Max Oldham got the Cal equalizer 10 minutes later, before the late heroics.

Cal 3, UCLA 2 (OT)

So the Bears were able to defend their number 1 ranking on the road against an unranked SDSU team, how will they fare on the road against a top 10 ranked UCLA team?

Highlights from the UCLA match:

Once again, the Bears trailed early in this match. In fact, the Bears allowed basically the same play to score against them at the beginning of the game and the second half. The Golden Bears had answers for both of those cases, however. With a PK awarded on a handball inside the box, senior captain Steve Birnbaum scored the equalizer in the second half to knot things up at 2-2. With both teams trading good chances, the game went to overtime. In the first minute of overtime, the Bears got a great runs from Luis Fuentes and Connor Hallisey to have Hallisey set up freshman Stefano Bonomo for the Golden Goal in dramatic fashion.

"It was a great game," Grimes said. "Both teams played very well today. You can’t ask for anything more than that: Playing in a match that was highly contest, with both teams giving everything they had. We took our chance early in overtime, and we’re pleased with the goal we scored in getting the victory."

Up Next:

The top ranked and still undefeated Bears only have one match this week, but it is the home leg of the Bay Area Derby against Stanfurd. Head out to Edwards Stadium to see the best team in college soccer and support your Bears if you can. The match will be played at 2:30 PM on Sunday with the game also on the Pac-12 Networks.

Cal Women's Soccer (9-1-4, 2-1-2)

The other undefeated team heading into this past week was the Cal Women's Soccer. The Bears host the LA schools this past week. The UCLA match on Sunday set a season high attendance record.

Pac-12 Women's Soccer STANDINGS

Cal 1, USC 1 (2 OT)

The Bears continued their streak of not allowing any first half goal in this one. Senior Rachel Mercik gave the Bears an early lead in the first half, but the previously pointless in the conference USC team was confident and attacking. They got an equalizer and eventually got the draw. Bears' unbeaten streak was extended to 13 match, however.

Cal 0, UCLA 1

Against the 2nd ranked team in the country, the Bears finally allowed a first half goal to the opponent. Unfortunately, that was the only goal scored in the entire match.

Coach Neil McGuire talks about the result here:

What is interesting this year in Pac-12 Women's Soccer is that Stanfurd already has three conference losses, after going unbeaten in conference play for the past 40+ matches. Bears' loss to UCLA does hurt their shot at winning the conference (since teams only play each other once), but there are still plenty of soccer to be played.

Up Next:

Bears will close out their home season with Senior Day (already?) against Colorado on Friday. Then they will hit the road for the last 5 matches of the regular season.

Cal Women's Swimming

Women's Swimming only send a few representatives to Fresno State for the Bulldog Invitationals. Nevertheless, the New York Times had another interesting article on Missy Franklin (since we started this week by talking about national champions, who is going to bet against Missy winning at least one national title this year?) and her Cal experience.

The @nytimes put out a fantastic article on @FranklinMissy this past weekend. Read here: http://t.co/gakEWrTQ5r #GoBears

— Cal Bears (@CalAthletics) October 14, 2013

The interesting quotes are the following:

She turned down at least a million dollars in endorsements so she could compete in college while working toward a bachelor's degree in a field that she has no clue how to divide.

"I have a double major," she said, joking. "Undecided and undeclared."

The workload is more challenging and exhausting than Franklin had imagined. With a laugh, she said, "I've learned that Berkeley is very hard."

She added: "Classes are definitely kicking me in the butt. But I love it."

Swimming for nothing, hard knocks for free. It is the deal Franklin, who grew up in Colorado, signed up for when she accepted an athletic scholarship instead of a professional contract.

"Best decision I have ever made," she said.

Best of luck to Missy in juggling the course work and her swim training while having fun at the same time.

Up Next:

Bears will welcome swim powerhouse Florida to Berkeley for two days of competition this weekend (Saturday at 1 PM and Sunday at 9 AM).

Cal Men's Swimming

Cal Men's Swimming has a nice video every week to discuss their upcoming competition. Here is the one for the duel meet against Indiana.

As for the result, Bears dominated in the pool yet again, winning 173-122.

“Josh (Prenot), Ryan (Murphy) and Tyler (Messerschmidt) were impressive in winning two events apiece, while Jeremy Bagshaw continued his strong performances that began towards the end of last year,” said Cal coach David Durden. “Our guys raced hard through all their events today. It was a step up from our first meet against Pacific, which is great to see.”

Up Next:

Bears have some time off until welcoming Wisconsin on Friday, November 1st.

Cal Volleyball (10-5, 3-3)

Volleyball welcomed the mountain schools to Berkeley. First up, the Bears faced off against a tough Colorado team which has had upset (home) wins over UCLA and former No.1 Washington already.

Cal 3, Colorado 0

Bears easily dispatched the Buffs on Wednesday.

Cal 1, Utah 3

Utah provided the Bears with some matchup problem as the Bears got flustered on numerous occasions by the Utes' blocking. Unlike the last week when the team dug deep when behind against better opponents in UCLA and USC, the Bears started to make some unforced errors with service errors and shanked passes. What looked like a great chance to return to the top 25 rankings resulted in a loss.

PAC-12 VOLLEYBALL STANDINGS

Up Next:

Bears face a very tough task when they travel up to Seattle to play a top 10 Washington team on Wednesday night (Pac-12 Networks). Bears will then face off against Wazzu later this week (on Pac-12 Digital).

Cal Rugby 7s

Bears continue year two of devoting the fall to Rugby 7s, the formate that is in the Olympics. Bears participated in the West Coast 7s this past weekend in San Luis Obispo. Bears started the day with 33-7 win over Sacramento State and 36-0 win over UC Davis in pool plays. In the semifinal, Bears downed St Mary's College 17-10 to advance to the final against UCLA. A younger and less experienced squad than the team that won the CRC 7's in the spring, the Bears fell to UCLA 24-19 in the finals.

Bears will play in two more fall Rugby 7s tournament this year. Saint Mary's Sevens Invitational is on the weekend of October 26-27. The PAC Sevens Tournament is the following weekend. Bears may actually get the chance to exact revenge against the Bruins in both of those two tournaments.

Cal Men's Water Polo

Participating in the SoCal tournament, the 5th ranked Cal Water Polo again dominated against lesser competitions while suffer losses against the top 4 teams (USC, UCLA, Stanfurd, and Pacific). This week, it is Furd that knocked the Bears into the loser's bracket as the Bears fell 14-8 in their second match. Bears won their other three matches of the weekend against UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, and UC San Diego.

Up Next:

Bears has a road match at UC Santa Barbara on Sunday.

Cal Field Hockey

Field Hockey had a tough week dropping a 3-2 decision to the visiting Yale and a 2-0 loss to UC Davis.

GO BEARS!