clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Golden Medals: Cal Women's Soccer won Duke Nike Classic, Men's Water Polo goes 4-0 at Triton Invitational

A successful North Carolina trip for Cal Women's Soccer is the story of the week. Men's Water Polo opened the year strong. Men's Soccer picked up two wins at home. Field Hockey defeated a B1G squad in Indiana.

By Ruey Yen
Arielle Ship has had a good week, collecting a whole bunch of awards.
Arielle Ship has had a good week, collecting a whole bunch of awards.
Cal Women's Soccer Facebook

It was another eventful week in Cal Olympics Sports action. It's time again for your weekly roundup of Cal Athletics action and how the various Cal squads are trending.

Upcoming Schedule:

A Cal Soccer doubleheader is on both Edwards Stadium (if you're in Berkeley) and the Pac-12 Networks this afternoon - starting at 2 pm PT when Women's Soccer plays UC Riverside. Cal Men's Soccer will follow with a match against UC Davis. Let's show them who is the flagship UC campus!

Cal Volleyball is playing at the Service Academy Classic inside the Pentagon this weekend. No live stream for these matches, but it should be a neat experience for the team. It's been several years since the Cal Volleyball team was in the DC region - they stopped by DC when they played down at Virginia 4 years ago (back in the season that saw the Bears opened up as the top ranked team in the country).

After opening the season down in San Diego, Cal Men's Water Polo will play a match at UC Davis this weekend.

The road warriors that are the Cal Field Hockey team will be in Penn State this weekend. They will play host Penn State as well as Bucknell. Additionally (I don't have any more details on this for the moment), the online schedule for Cal Field Hockey has now listed the games that were scheduled to take place in Berkeley to "TBA". Oy!

Fri,
Sep 11
 Volleyball Service Academy Classic: Harvard Arlington, VA 7:00 a.m.
Fri,
Sep 11
 W Soccer UC Riverside Berkeley, CA 2:00 p.m.
Pac-12 Networks
▪ Live Stats
Fri,
Sep 11
 Field Hockey Penn State at State College, PA 3:00 p.m. Live Stats
Fri,
Sep 11
 Volleyball Service Academy Classic: Army Arlington, VA 3:30 p.m.
Fri,
Sep 11
 M Soccer UC Davis Berkeley, CA 4:30 p.m. Pac-12 Bay Area ▪ Live Stats
Sat,
Sep 12
 Volleyball Service Academy Classic: Air Force Arlington, VA 8:00 a.m.
Sat,
Sep 12
 Football San Diego State Berkeley, CA 2:00 p.m.
Pac-12 Networks
Sun,
Sep 13
 M Golf Gopher Invitational (Host: Minnesota) Independence, MN All Day
Sun,
Sep 13
 Field Hockey Bucknell State College, PA 10:00 a.m.
Sun,
Sep 13
 M Water Polo UC Davis at Davis, CA 12:00 p.m. Live Stats
Sun,
Sep 13
 W Soccer St. Mary's (California) Berkeley, CA 1:00 p.m. Live Stats
Mon,
Sep 14
 W Golf CSU Ptarmigan Classic Fort Collins, CO All Day
Mon,
Sep 14
 M Golf Gopher Invitational (Host: Minnesota) Independence, MN All Day
Tue,
Sep 15
 W Golf CSU Ptarmigan Classic Fort Collins, CO All Day
Thu,
Sep 17
 W Tennis Battle In The Bay San Francisco, CA All Day
Thu,
Sep 17
 M Tennis Battle In The Bay San Francisco, CA All Day

Cal Women's Soccer (3-1-1, 1-1-0 to win Nike Classic last weekend)

With a 1-1 draw against No.4 North Carolina and a 3-1 win over No.18 Duke, the Bears came away from a weekend in Durham, North Carolina with the Duke Nike Classic title. Fans can still find both of these matches in the replay section of ESPN3/WatchESPN app.

Bears also are now back amongst the ranked.

Cal 1, No.4 North Carolina 1

Okay, the Bears probably should have won this match as they led 1-0 until very very late. However, I would take a draw with a top 5 ranked team in hostile territory (okay, the match was played at Duke, but that's much much closer to Chapel Hill than Berkeley) any day.

Head Coach Neil McGuire’s Take
"Tonight’s game was a true test for us, and a great battle between two very good teams. We are of course disappointed to not close out the game being 1-0 up in the dying moments, but I’m very proud of our girls. UNC is a tremendous team, so there are many positives to take from this match."

Goal Summary
14:46, Cal – Arielle Ship (Kelly Fitzgerald) – Played over the top of the defense by #16, flicked over GK by #10
87:08, UNC – Megan Buckingham (Dorian Bailey) – Blast from 18 yards out in between a scrum in front of the net

Cal 3, No.18 Duke 1

Following the good UNC result, the Bears were the first team this year to score on the Duke Blue Devils. In a splendid first half, the Bears' attack was clicking on all cylinders to produce a bunch of nice chances. Bears jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead. Despite allowing a fluky goal on a corner kick that Cal goalie Emily Boyd probably believe that she should handle more often than not. Bears capped off the scoring and got the tournament winning goal differential when Celeste Boureille (Cal hero last week) scored off a set play for the final margin.

Also huge in this game is the fact that Ifeoma Onumonu got on the scoring sheet. The senior was a highly regarded potential All-American candidate last preseason before suffering a season ending injury early. Sporting a heavy looking brace on her knee so far this year, Ifeoma Onumonu nevertheless still brings extra offensive firepower and dimension to the Cal attack.

Neil McGuire's Take
"We are very proud of the way the team played today. Coach Church has an exceptional team, and we had to be at our best."

"The most impressive part of the weekend was watching the players fight for one another, and fight for Cal."

Goal Summary
11:45, Cal – Ifeoma Onumonu (Arielle Ship) – Give and go before #22’s strike to the far corner
13:29, Cal – Arielle Ship (Ifeoma Onumonu) – #22 header over backline, #10 strike from 14 yards to left corner
37:38, Duke – Danielle Duhl (Christina Gibbons) – #23 run through follow-up after corner kick
59:13, Cal – Celeste Boureille (Arielle Ship, Kelly Fitzgerald) – Corner kick dummied by #10, finished by #13

A bunch of national accolades for Arielle Ship, and deservedly so. Ship was involved in all 4 goals scored by the Bears last weekend. Ship scored two of them and assisted in two more.

Good to see the Pac-12 conference also honoring Sandra Ley for her defensive effort that doesn't jump out on the boxscore. Ley got the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Week honor. Ship got the Offensive Player of the Week.

Alum News

This would be interesting to watch:

Hopefully, this will let more young girls to know the Alex Morgan - Cal connection and maintain that Cal recruiting edge.

Cal Men's Water Polo (4-0 on the year, season started last weekend)

Unlike the NorCal tournament next weekend and the SoCal tournament later, the Triton Invitational is not a true tournament. 3rd ranked Cal was there along with UCLA and USC but never played the SoCal powerhouse.

Nevertheless, the Bears actually had a tough opening act against No.5 Pacific and managed to roll through the rest of the ranked (but clearly a tier below) competitions.

Cal 13, Pacific 12 (2 OT)

Lazar Andric made 11 saves as the new goalkeeper for the Bears. OT goals by Farrel South and Johnny Hooper were the difference. This was a tough contest as the Pacific program has gotten a lot better in the last two years.

Cal 26, Cal Baptist 8

Bears are much much better than Cal Baptist. This is like Cal Football beating Grambling State.

Cal 12, UC Santa Barbara 5

UCSB are ranked 7th in the country. Nice to see the Bears win this one easily.

Cal 16, UC San Diego 5

UC San Diego are ranked 10th in the country and were the hosts.

It doesn't matter who it came against, 16 goals in 4 game is quite an achievement. Congrats to senior Colin Mulcahy on that achievement and being named MPSF Player of the Week.

Cal Men's Soccer (2-1, 2-0 last week)

Back home after opening the season at San Diego, the young Golden Bears got on the scoring sheet and recorded the first two victories of the year.

Cal 3, VCU 1

After a scoreless first 40 minutes, Bears scored the first goal on the year when junior Nick Lima also tallied his first career goal. Paul Salcedo and Jose Carrera-Garcia who also scored goals are more likely candidates to get on the scoring sheet for the Bears.

Scoring Summary

Cal –  40:54    Lima, Nick (Thierjung, Christian)

Cal –  53:38    Salcedo, Paul (Thierjung, Christian)

Cal –  61:54    Carrera-Garcia, Jose (Sivakumar, Aravind)

VCU –66:16    McGlothern, Jason (Owusu, Isaac)

Cal 3, Northeastern 0

After assisting on two goals against VCU, Christian Theirjung scored his first of the season and assisted in another one. Bears scored two goals in the first half and was not threatened in this one.

Scoring Summary

Cal –  16:37    Ebstein, Samuel (Sivakumar, Aravind and Thierjung, Christian)
Cal –  27:59    Thierjung, Christian (Salcedo, Paul and Junqua, Sam)
Cal –  81:49    Salcedo, Paul (Carrera-Garcia, Jose)

Bears host UC Davis later today.

Cal Field Hockey (3-2, 2-1 on the weekend)

Both of the Cal losses this year has come against ranked opponent. The opening 5-1 loss was to the 5th ranked Duke. Against a ranked Louisville team this past weekend, Bears were edged 1-0.

Nevertheless, it was a successful weekend for the Field Hockey squad as the team tallied a 7-1 win over St. Louis and a 2-1 win over Indiana. Bears played all three matches this past weekend at UC Davis and it appears that the home field situation may not be resolved in time for them as the previously scheduled in Berkeley matches are now listed as "TBA". I will pass along more info if I see them.

For their 2-1 week, two of the three conference awards went to Golden Bears. Congrats to junior Sydney Earle as the American East (yes, Cal is in the American East despite geographically on the West Coast...since Berkeley is technically further west than Palo Alto or UC Davis or Pacific, Bears are the farthest west team in the conference) Player of the Week and freshman Melina Moore as the American East Rookie of the Week.

Bears visit No.14 Penn State today. Given how well the team is playing, I would be shocked if the Bears pull off an upset.

Cal Volleyball (3-3, 1-2 at the Kansas State Tournament)

Senior middle blocker Lillian Schonewise is back for the Bears, but the Bears can only win 1 of 3 matches in Manhatten last weekend.

After a thrilling 5-set win over UNLV, the tired Bears couldn't beat host Kansas State that night (fell in 4). Bears concluded their trip being swept in 3 matches by Green Bay (not sure how Aaron Rodgers feel about that result).

Against UNLV:

Against Kansas State:

Against Green Bay:

I expect the Bears to have more success this weekend at the Service Academy Classic against Harvard, Army, and Air Force.

GO BEARS!

More From California Golden Blogs