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Golden Medals: Huge wins by Cal Women's Soccer, Men's Water Polo, Volleyball, and Men's Soccer

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It was a fine weekend for Cal Athletics. Find out all the good news below.

By Ruey Yen
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Cal Men's Water Polo got a huge 12-10 win over USC to become the 2nd ranked team in the country
Cal Men's Water Polo got a huge 12-10 win over USC to become the 2nd ranked team in the country
Cal Men's Water Polo Facebook page

Apologies for not having a post up last week. It's time to recap the eventful past two weeks in Cal Athletics.

Schedule:

Sadly, the match of the two tied-for-second in the country men's water polo teams (Cal and Pacific) will not be covered by the Pac-12 Networks. Cal fans should still pack Spiekers for that match though.

Rugby fans can enjoy the weekend PAC Rugby 7s championship being hosted by the Bears. Should be a fun weekend with tons of matches amongst the 10 schools participating. Should be a fun time for the entire family. Part of the Sunday's action will be on the Pac-12 Networks.

Cal Volleyball is up at the Oregon Schools. Cal Soccer is traveling less far as the women tonight and the men on Thursday will take on Stanford down at The Farm for the Bay Area Derby.

Fri,
Nov 6
 Field Hockey America East Quarterfinals: Maine Albany, NY 1:30 p.m. Live Stream ▪ Live Stats
Fri,
Nov 6
 M Swimming & Diving North Carolina State Berkeley, CA 3:00 p.m. Live Stats
Fri,
Nov 6
 W Soccer Stanford at Stanford, CA 6:00 p.m. Pac-12 Bay Area
Fri,
Nov 6
 Volleyball Oregon State at Corvallis, OR 7:00 p.m. Live Audio ▪ Live Event
Sat,
Nov 7
 W Water Polo Collegiate Cup Irvine, CA All Day
Sat,
Nov 7
 Rugby PAC Rugby 7s Championship vs. Stanford Berkeley, CA 9:00 a.m.
Sat,
Nov 7
 Cross Country Doc Adams Invitational Davis, CA 10:00 a.m.
Sat,
Nov 7
 Rugby PAC Rugby 7s Championship vs. Colorado Berkeley, CA 10:30 a.m.
Sat,
Nov 7
 M Water Polo University of the Pacific Berkeley, CA 12:00 p.m.
Sat,
Nov 7
 Rugby PAC Rugby 7s Championship vs. Utah Berkeley, CA 1:30 p.m.
Sat,
Nov 7
 Field Hockey America East Championships Albany, NY TBA
Sat,
Nov 7
 Rugby PAC Rugby 7s Championship vs. Oregon State Berkeley, CA 3:00 p.m.
Sat,
Nov 7
 Football Oregon at Eugene, OR 7:30 p.m. ESPN2 ▪ Live Event ▪ Live Stats
Sun,
Nov 8
 W Water Polo Collegiate Cup Irvine, CA All Day
Sun,
Nov 8
 Rugby PAC Rugby 7s Championship Berkeley, CA All Day
Pac-12 Networks
Sun,
Nov 8
 M Water Polo Pepperdine Berkeley, CA 12:00 p.m.
Sun,
Nov 8
 Volleyball Oregon at Eugene, OR 1:30 p.m. Pac-12 Oregon ▪ Live Audio
Sun,
Nov 8
 W Basketball Westmont Berkeley, CA 2:00 p.m. Live Stream ▪ Live Stats ▪ Promotions ▪ Tickets ▪Twitter
Sun,
Nov 8
 Field Hockey America East Championships Albany, NY TBA
Mon,
Nov 9
 M Basketball Carroll (Montana) Berkeley, CA 7:00 p.m.
Pac-12 Networks
Thu,
Nov 12
 M Tennis USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships New York, NY All Day Live Stats
Thu,
Nov 12
 W Tennis USTA/ITA National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships New York, NY All Day Live Stats
Thu,
Nov 12
 W Swimming & Diving Minnesota Arena Pro Swim Series Minneapolis, MN All Day
Thu,
Nov 12
 M Soccer Stanford at Stanford, CA 6:00 p.m.
Pac-12 Networks

Cal Women's Soccer (13-5-2, 6-4-0 in Pac-12)

ICYMI from elsewhere on the CGB front page, Pac-12 Networks' J.B. Long answered my questions on Cal Women's Soccer, Stanford (who the Bears will face tonight), and more. He definitely had some interesting answers and painted quite a rosy pictures for the state of the Stanford program, unfortunately.

Nevertheless, here is the key sentence:

Regarding the Bears, I've had more than one opposing coach tell me that Cal has the most talented roster in the Pac-12.

Bears have the talent to do some special things this year (which I have been saying since my preview of the fall Cal sports). All those things clicked last week on the historic 7-0 victory over UCLA.

Cal Women's Soccer had a historical day against UCLA yesterday. The match was on the Pac-12 Networks, which meant that we can relive the match via a bunch of GIFs.

Starting lineup:

First 30 minutes, no sign of a rout...yet.

41', Arielle Ship with her 12th goal of a great season...she's just getting started too

Halftime, Cal 1 - UCLA 0. Yes, this year's Bruins squad is not nearly as good as they graduated a bunch of key players, but the Bears are also trying to keep their perfect home record alive. Bears were 7-0-0 at home before this match.

49' UCLOLA, an own goal allowed the Bears to go up 2-0

51' Ifeoma Onumonu makes it 3-0

61' Taking advantage of a bad UCLA turnover, Arielle Ship made the Bruins pay

UCLA thinks they have a chance to score, but Emily Boyd is a brick wall that is also very very good against the penalty kick

67' Arielle Ship makes it a hat trick, her 2nd of the season

Two quick goals made the final 7-0 Bears. Nope, that's not a football score.

List of Cal Women's Soccer firsts:

11th shutout of the season for Cal keeper Emily Boyd, matching the single season mark set by Karen Cook.

7-0 is the biggest conference win for the Bears, matching a 7-0 win against Oregon State on September 21, 1991

***********

Unfortunately, the Bears followed up that big win with an 1-0 loss to USC on Senior Day.

Bears honored 7 players:

These 5 seniors

and two more 5th year seniors:

Ifeoma Onumonu and Elliott Gentile both have one year of eligibility remaining and may be back next year for a special run.

So the Bears will conclude their regular season play tonight at Stanford (more on that game in the preview/gamethread coming up tonight), then they will find out their NCAA fate on Monday in the NCAA selection show. The Bears are ranked 20th and are 21st in RPI. A big win tonight may help secure some much needed homefield advantage. With the exception of the recent loss to USC, the Bears have been perfect at home.

I will surely be updating CGB with the latest Cal Women's Soccer news next week and try to break down their NCAA draw.

Cal Men's Soccer (9-5-2, 4-3-2 in Pac-12)

On the men's side, Cal Men's Soccer has gone on a 4 match winning streak since my last Golden Medals post. They will take on Stanford down at the Farm on Thursday to conclude regular season play. Bears are finishing the year strong to make a late push for a return to the NCAA tournament. Coinciding with this run has been a changing of guard in the keeper position, fifth year senior Alex Mangels (who replaced Justin Tailole for the Bears' NCAA runs due to injuries in the past two years) have been replaced by freshman Jonathan Klinsmann (yes, the son of the currently not-so-popular head coach of USMNT). Klinsmann came in to replace Alex Mangels in that forgettable 6-0 loss to UCLA the week before.

Offensively, Christian Thierjung has been on a tear for the Bears.

Cal 4, San Diego State 3 (2nd OT)

Thierjung starts his recent great run with a hat trick against SDSU, including this game winner.

Scoring Summary
0:46     - Cal Thierjung, Christian (unassisted)
13:04   - SDSU    Reyes, Rene (Macias, Casey)
15:29   - Cal Salcedo, Paul (Lima, Nick)
26:47   - Cal Thierjung, Christian (Held, Spencer)
52:40   - SDSU    Own Goal
84:34   - SDSU    Nicklaw, Travis (unassisted)
105:53 - Cal Thierjung, Christian (Carrera-Garcia, Jose and Held, Spencer)

Cal 4, UCLA 3

Bears got a quick revenge against those Bruins when the baby bears came to Berkeley.

Cal    – 3:00 Haberkorn, Trevor (Thierjung, Christian)
UCLA – 9:01    Hernandez, Jose (Yueill, Jackson)
UCLA – 42:54  Danladi, Abu (Vale, Jordan)
Cal    – 56:02 Carrera-Garcia, Jose (penalty)
Cal    – 60:11 Held, Spencer (Carrera-Garcia, Jose)
Cal    – 82:28 Carrera-Garcia, Jose (Sivakumar, Aravind)
UCLA – 86:48  Hernandez, Jose (penalty)

A brace from Jose Carrera-Garcia, including this dandy play allowed the Bears to hold on for the win.

Cal 1, Washington 0

More Christian Thierjung magic for the Bears as he scored a late 88th minute goal.

Klinsmann was also quite solid, including a late save (can't find that GIF) to preserve the Cal victory.

Cal    – 87:10 Thierjung, Christian (unassisted)

Somewhat remarkably, this was the first road win of the year for the Bears.

Cal 2, Oregon State 1

Bears then made it 4 wins in a row and 2 straight on the road when they beat the Beavers.

Cal   – 6:14 Thierjung, Christian (Held, Spencer and Carrera-Garcia, Jose)
Cal   – 22:02 Lima, Nick (Carrera-Garcia, Jose and Salcedo, Paul)
OSU – 38:36   Jones, Jordan (Mueller, Timmy)

Bears are now ranked 24th in the country. In a bit of a reversal of a couple of years ago, the Bears could use a great showing against a top 5 ranked Stanford squad to truly ensure our participation in the NCAA tournament. Stanford got that much needed late win against us (when we were highly ranked), it is time to return the favor on Thursday (we will have an open thread for that match).

Cal Volleyball (9-14, 3-9 in Pac-12)

Yep, the Golden Bears now have 3 Pac-12 wins on the season. After winning a 5 setters against Utah the week before, the Bears got their first home win in two seasons by sweeping Washington State in straight sets. Of course, this win wasn't so simple as demonstrated by the following play:

Of course, the Bears lost to the ranked Washington team before beating the unranked Washington State team. Just when you start to wonder if the Bears are good enough to beat a ranked opponent...

This win came against the 14th ranked Arizona State team.

The offensive heroes are:

Per beating Arizona State, the Bears will be attending tomorrow night's Cal-Oregon football game in person.

Although they could not duplicate the same feat against Arizona, now the Bears KNOW that they are good enough to be a top 25 level team again. I think we got another upsets or two ahead of us, even if 6 of the final 8 matches are on the road.

Cal Men's Water Polo (19-4, 5-1 in MPSF)

Bears put up a battle against No.1 UCLA but fell just short to lose on this goal 8-7. It was an opportunity missed, although the Bears should have gained plenty of confidence that they are back to the level where they can beat anyone (Bears also own that 14-11 win over Stanford earlier in a tournament play).

Against the other lower ranked teams in the MPSF, the Bears had little issues.

Long Beach State did push the Bears but Cal won 15-14. Bears then backed up the fact that they can beat anyone by defeating USC 12-10. There was no let down for the Bears in their 13-5 win over San Jose State.

Cal 12, USC 10

It was a glorious home match for the Bears against the visiting Trojans, who the Bears had beaten once in tournament play in 2014.

Johnny Hooper led the Bears with 4 goals, Odysseas Masmanidis added three and Farrel South scored two. Luca Cupido, Conor Neumann and Thomas Agramonte rounded out the scoring for the Bears.

Match was close as expected, with a 7-all tie at halftime and then a 10-all tie and just 5 minute left in regulation. Agramonte put the Bears ahead and then the Bears got a huge insurance goal from Hooper.

This win over USC is a big reason why the Bears are now tied for 2nd in men's water polo. It also means that tomorrow's home match vs. UOP pits the two No.2 teams in the country against one another.

Cal Field Hockey (9-9, 4-3 in American East)

First off all, a huge congratulations on Cal freshman Melina Moore!

After starting the conference play 4-0, the Bears have fallen on a bit of hard time, result-wise, as they are now on a 5 match losing streak. To be fair, the Bears have played fairly well since Stanford took revenge and beat Cal 4-0, but just got edged.

The match against Pacific came down to a penalty shootout and that went the Tigers' way. Against UC Davis to close the regular season, the Bears got edged 4-3 late.

American East tournament started yesterday with the Bears' first match schedule for today at 1:30 PM PT (NOW). The two late losses dropped the Bears to be the 3rd seed from the West. Nevertheless, the Bears are probably good enough to beat anyone and an automatic NCAA berth is just 3 wins away...

Should the Cal Golden Bears be able to beat the Maine Black Bears, they can face Stanford tomorrow.

In other Cal Field Hockey news, progress has apparently been made on Field Hockey's new home.


Cal Cross Country

The Pac-12 Cross Country meet was last Friday. Neither the Cal men nor women did particularly great. More disappointingly, apparently Cal women standout Bethan Knights did not compete (probably due to an injury?).

Both the men and the women repeated their 7th place finish of the year before. Chris Walden led the 21st ranked men with a 10th place finish. The women were led by freshman Marissa Williams who finished 13th.

Both Walden and Williams are named to the Pac-12 second team.

Walden made it to the NCAA's last year along side Cal women's Bethan Knights. Qualifications for the NCAA will depends on their performances at the Regional, next week on November 13th in Washington.

Cal Swimming

The Cal men took on Stanford in a triple distance meet on Wednesday and it was almost all Cal. Bears won 5 of 6 events and are lamenting about not sweeping it all. It just reinforces how crazy strong the Cal swimming program is since Stanford is not too shabby themselves.

Bears will also swim against NC State this afternoon, although scores are not officially kept. Here more about what happened on Wednesday and what to expect this afternoon from head coach Dave Durden and senior (and physics major which makes him my favorite Cal swimmer) Josh Prenot.

Cal women's will swim in Minnesota next week. This trip is surely a reward for US National teamer and Calympian Rachel Bootsma to make a homecoming (beside the fact that Minnesota also hosts the NCAA finals once in awhile...this year's NCAA championships for both the men and the women will take place in Atlanta, by the way).

Cal Rugby

Last but not least, Cal Rugby will be hosting the PAC Rugby 7s Championship this weekend. Bears will open play at noon against Stanford (it's hard to #drop100 on Stanford in a 7s match, but I sure would like to see the Bears try) and then play the rest of the PAC.

It is actually kind of impressive to see that 10 out of the 12 Pac-12 schools will be represented this weekend. It's surely due to the effort of many Cal rugby staff and alumni to grow the sports, particularly now that the rugby 7s format will be in the Olympics next year in Rio.

Get your act together, Washington and Washington State and create your own rugby program!

Bears will look to go undefeated in fall 7s for the first time in program history.

GO BEARS!

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