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Golden Medals: Cal Women's Soccer splits matches in Hawaii, Volleyball opens renovated Haas

Berkeley is agains full of students and many Cal seasons (Volleyball, Field Hockey, Men's Soccer) officially open this weekend.

By Ruey Yen
Cal Volleyball team captain Maddy Kerr (daughter of Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr) and the Golden Bears will open 2015 season tonight in the renovated Haas Pavilion.
Cal Volleyball team captain Maddy Kerr (daughter of Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr) and the Golden Bears will open 2015 season tonight in the renovated Haas Pavilion.
Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

Schedule:

Students looking for Cal sporting events to check out with their old and new friends should no further than the renovated Haas Pavilion. Cal Volleyball will kick off 2015 season by hosting the Molten Classic where they will play Nevada, Eastern Washington, and Seattle. Fans can actually also watch the matches online via a free stream. Maybe the renovation has made a significant better online stream for Cal events in Haas (my fingers are crossed about this).

Also at home are Cal Women's Soccer who will play San Diego State on Saturday, game is on Pac-12 Bay Area. Yes, this was also the matchup for the last Cal Women's Soccer home match of 2014 - a fun (or nerve-wrecking) back-and-forth one that memorably ended via the heroic of one Arielle Ship in the 2nd OT of the NCAA 1st round.

Traveling a little bit south, Field Hockey will play two matches down at Stanford - taking on Duke and Bryant.

Traveling further south, Cal Men's Soccer will open the year at San Diego.

Fri,
Aug 28
 Field Hockey Duke Stanford, CA 12:00 p.m.
Fri,
Aug 28
 Volleyball Molten Classic: Seattle U vs Eastern Wash. Berkeley, CA 4:30 p.m. Live Stats
Fri,
Aug 28
 M Soccer San Diego at San Diego, CA 7:00 p.m. Live Stream ▪ Live Stats
Fri,
Aug 28
 Volleyball Molten Classic: Nevada Berkeley, CA 7:00 p.m. Live Stats
Sat,
Aug 29
 Volleyball Molten Classic: Eastern Washington Berkeley, CA 10:00 a.m. Live Stats
Sat,
Aug 29
 Volleyball Molten Classic: Seattle U vs Nevada Berkeley, CA 12:00 p.m. Live Stats
Sat,
Aug 29
 W Soccer San Diego State Berkeley, CA 2:00 p.m. Pac-12 Bay Area
Sat,
Aug 29
 Volleyball Molten Classic: Eastern Washington vs Nevada Berkeley, CA 4:30 p.m. Live Stats
Sat,
Aug 29
 Volleyball Molten Classic: Seattle University Berkeley, CA 7:00 p.m. Live Stats
Sun,
Aug 30
 Field Hockey Bryant Stanford, CA 10:00 a.m.

In case you missed it, I wrote a couple brief previews of the Cal Fall Olympics sports for these last two weeks. Part 1 covers Volleyball, Men's and Women's Soccer can be found here. Part 2 covers Men's Water Polo, Field Hockey, and Cross Country is here. Cal Athletics has up their game and produced two preview videos this past week for Cal Volleyball and Cal Men's Soccer (embedded below). Nevertheless, with the seasons starting this weekend, we will have some stats and game results to better assess these Cal squads soon.

Cal Women's Soccer (1-1)

The lone Cal squad to have some actual results, the Cal Women's Soccer teams played 3 matches - 2 that counted and 1 televised exhibition against Beijing Normal University (that I did not have the time to check out, unfortunately). Bears allowed many of the youngster to get some true playing experience via the exhibition. Given how head coach Neil McGuire has always love to use plenty of players, it's a good opportunities for the Cal youngsters to earn some PT.

In the coaches' poll, Bears have just dropped out of the top 25 into a tie for No.26. Sharing the tie with the Bears are this weekend's opponents in San Diego State.

Let's talk about the ones that count first, though.

Bears #drop5 on Hawaii and earned the first official victory (yep, I'm not counting the men's basketball exhibitions in Australia) for all of Cal Athletics for the 2015-16 school year. See above about the San Diego State match last year, Arielle Ship stepped up her game and scored a hat trick in Hawaii.

What was particularly interesting about this starting lineup is the presence of senior striker in Ifeoma Onumonu. Onumonu suffered a season ending injury early last year, but the former Pac-12 Freshman of the Year who garnered national attention as a potential All-American type before her injury, started a match for the Golden Bears for the first time in nearly an year. Onumonu assisted in two of Ship's goals.

From CalBears.com:

Head Coach Neil McGuire
"We played very well against a very determined Hawaii team. Coach Nagamine always has her teams prepared, and we were pleased to have created the chances we did."

"The team responded well to a disappointing loss on Friday and gained confidence from this game."

Goal Summary
3:04, Cal – Arielle Ship (-) – Strike into the lower right corner
24:50, Cal – Arielle Ship (Ifeoma Onumonu) – One touch after feed from Onumonu
51:55, Cal – Arielle Ship (-) – Lower corner
61:31, Cal – Guro Bergsvand (Ifeoma Onumonu, Emma Fletcher) – Header via back heel thru ball by Onumonu and cross by Fletcher
82:33, Cal – Kelly Fitzgerald (Heather Walleigh) – Slotted a low shot into the corner
84:00, Hawaii – Lauren Takai (-) – Off deflection from a free kick

Ship's goal 3 minute in was also the first goal of the season for the Bears as the No.18 Golden Bears were shutout in their opener against No.19 BYU, which opened their trip in Hawaii.

Bears outshot BYU by a 8-3 margin for shots on goal but cannot find the back of the net.

From CalBears.com:

Head Coach Neil McGuire
"Both players and coaches are disappointed with our overall performance tonight as we never settled into our rhythm. We battled hard but didn't take our chances."

Goal Summary
8:11, BYU – Elena Medeiros (Nadia Gomes) – Rocketed a strike under the crossbar
73:05, BYU – Ashley Hatch (-) – Unassisted

This was the starters for the match.

Bears started a younger group against Beijing Normal and jumped out to a quick big lead before faltering late.

Here are some of the Cal goals:

Bears managed to #drop5 again but lost 6-5 in the end. Both Buro Bergsvand and Arielle Ship scored for the Bears for a 2nd straight match.

Cal Volleyball

The Bears are ready to get their season started tonight.

Coach Rich Feller talks about the young Cal team that is ready for actual competitions. The "most skilled" freshmen class of 5 is expected to be big contributors (or at least boost the quality of the Cal practices). Team captain and starting libero Maddy Kerr also talked about how close many sets lost by Cal last year were and how the this team will hopefully close that gap.

Bears are looking to bounce back from a rough 2014 season. The results of this weekend will likely not give us a good insight into the Bears' ability. Last year, Bears took care of their non-conference schedule before faltering to all the good Pac-12 teams. Expect the Bears to sweep every sets this weekend (though Coach Feller will likely used more youngster in the 3rd set should we be up 2-0) or we may be in for another tough year.

Cal Men's Soccer

Senior goalkeeper Alex Mangels and sophomore defenders Joshua Morton talked about the young Cal team for 2015.

One of the Cal Men's Soccer recruit/freshman will not be able to play this year due to health concern.

Best of luck to Christian to get his health situation under control. We hope he does not have to be forced into an early retirement and get to leave the game under his own term.

Bears will travel down to San Diego to open the season down there. While this squad does have a top 25 ranking right now, there are so many key pieces that need replacement. It might take our guys and coach Kevin Grimes a few games to figure all this out.

Cal Field Hockey

Cal Field Hockey has a new home in Berkeley this year but will still open the year down at Stanford.

One of the most forgotten program in Cal Athletics will hopefully not endure the same bus issues and practice fields issues are last year. They will also be playing in a new conference (American East...yeah, that's a weird name for a California team to play in) but that's not really a difference on the team's schedule until the conference tournament (in Albany rather than Northern Virginia).

Bears will take on Duke today and then play Bryant on Sunday.

Given the graduation of their top scorer (by a large margin) in Lara Kruggel (check out DailyCal's piece on her from last year), it would be interesting to see who will be leading the team in shots taken.

GO BEARS!

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