Golden Medals: Successful LA trip vaulted Cal Women’s Soccer to top 10

Cal Women’s Soccer (11-2-1, 4-0-1 in Pac-12)

Facing two Top-10 teams down in LA last week, Golden Bears came within a minute of earning two huge road wins. Although the late equalizer allowed to UCLA for a 1-1 draw was disappointing, Bears bounced back with a 1-0 victory at USC to make it a 1-0-1 weekend.

Thanks to the successful trip, the previously 14th ranked Bears are now ranked in the Top 10 themselves.

Cal 1, UCLA 1 (2 OT)

This match was mentioned in my Golden Medals post from last week. Anyhow, Ifeoma Onumonu, with an assist by freshman Abigail Kim scored her 7th goal of the year in the 16th minute. After making several brilliant saves, Bears came within 53 seconds of a shutout when UCLA’s Courtney Proctor got the rebound of her initial shot and equalized the match.

Cal keeper Emily Boyd had a career best 11 saves in this one (3 shy of the Cal program record).

Cal 1, USC 0

It was a tight scoreless match in this Sunday matinee between the Bears and the Trojans before freshman Abigail Kim puts the Bears ahead in the 86th minute. Her goal was assisted by fellow freshman Mia Corbin.

Emily Boyd saved 8 shots in this gem.

With her 9th clean sheet (soccer terminology for shutouts), Cal goalie Emily Boyd collected several honors as the Keeper of the Week.

Pac-12 Keeper of the Week:

NSCAA Keeper of the Week:

And more:

The honors are well deserved since Boyd has been making plays like this all season long.

Golden Bears are now in a pretty good position for the Pac-12 title (where each team only play each other once). Due to USWNT call up, a short handed Stanford lost to USC last week before beating UCLA (so all three of Stanford, UCLA, and USC have a loss in conference play).

Colorado currently leads the Pac with a 5-0 record but they have yet to play the California schools. Bears are essentially in the drivers’ seat right now but needs to avoid being upset by lesser team (a problem last year).

Bears face a winless in the Pac-12 Oregon Ducks on the road on Saturday (6 pm PT with a LIVE STREAM). Bears will then return to Berkeley to host a tough Utah squad next Thursday at 2 pm PT (on Pac-12 Networks).

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Cal Men’s Tennis

You may question how important these preseason tennis tournaments are and how well do they correlate with the end of the season NCAA success, nevertheless, it was still quite an impressive feat for the Cal Men’s Tennis duo of Filip Bergevi (senior from Sweden) and Florian Lakat (senior from France) to run the gauntlet en route to winning the ITA All-American Championship doubles title.

Bears were able to have some success down in Tulsa, the same site of last year’s NCAA tournament.

Doug Eisenman and Matt Lucena were the last Cal men’s duo to win this title back in 1989.

Last year, Cal women’s duo of Denise Starr and Maegan Manasse won the doubles title ahead of a highly successful season.

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Cal Field Hockey lost 3-2 to Stanford in PK

Despite being heavy underdogs to the 17th ranked Stanford, Golden Bears gave the home crowd plenty to cheer about early, jumping out to a 2-0 first half lead. Melina Moore and Janaye Sakkas scored their 4th and 6th goals of the season.

Unfortunately, Stanford was able to score two goals in the 2nd half to send this match to OT. The match was not decided until the penalties which went the way of the visiting Stanford.

Nevertheless, it was an impressive fight by the Bears. From CalBears.com:

HEAD COACH SHELLIE ONSTEAD'S TAKE

On what team learned from overtime:It showed us that we're pretty tough. I was really proud of our resolve. It can be so painful, those long periods under pressure. During the overtimes, I thought we looked pretty darn good.

On overtime strategy:Overtime is a battle of moving when you don't have the ball, and fighting through the periods of when you're exhausted. There's a real art to the subbing and keeping people fresh. Overtime can often have a dominant team, yet one breakaway settles the game. Today, we saw two teams that really battled it out in a pretty good go.

Bears are now 3-7 on the season while 1-1 in the American East conference after beating UC Davis in the conference opener.

Bears are up in Maine to play both Vermont and Maine on Saturday and Sunday.

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Cal Men’s Soccer (4-5-2, 0-3-1 in Pac-12)

After some brilliant OT wins in the out-of-conference season, the Golden Bears have struggled to find their first win in Pac-12 play. It just goes to show how much parity there are in NCAA men’s soccer.

With senior striker Christian Thierjung ineligible due to a redcard in the previous match at Stanford, Bears was only able to earn a 2-2 draw at Oregon State.

Against No.16 Washington up in the rainy Seattle, Bears fought back for an equalizer only to immediately have a player redcarded after a 2nd yellow. The Huskies immediately took advantage of the 10 men Bears squad for the go-ahead goal in a 2-1 UW victory.

Back to Berkeley yesterday, Bears had an exciting back-and-forth match with UCLA. More heartbreak awaited the Bears as UCLA’s Blaine Martinez scored the game winner with a mere two seconds left in regulation. Goals by Haberkorn, Carrera-Garcia, and Morton were not enough.

Bears will next host San Diego State in a conference match on Sunday at 2pm (match is also on the Pac-12 Networks).

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Cal Volleyball (7-9, 1-5 in Pac-12)

ICYMI from my post this past Monday, it was possibly the best weekend thus far for Cal Volleyball - Savannah Rennie made her debut on the court, less than 5 month after her liver transplant, then the Golden Bears upset a ranked Colorado team for their first Pac-12 victory of the season.

Pac-12 Network had a feature on Rennie’s story.

Meanwhile, senior libero Maddy Kerr is about to set some new program records to no one’s surprise.

Bears host the Arizona schools this weekend. The ASU match tonight at 6 pm is also an Organ Donation awareness event.

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Cal Men’s Water Polo

No.2 Golden Bears have a couple of weeks off before a big match against No.1 UCLA.

Bears will host an Alumni Match this Saturday.

The important UCLA match time has also finally been announced.

That should be a fun match for all Water Polo fans. UCLA has recently set a brand new undefeated record in men’s water polo. They are due for a loss.

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Cal Men’s Golf

Bears finished in a tie for 8th in the Alister MacKenzie Invitational that the Bears host every year. Finishing 3rd was Cal sophomore Colin Morikawa.

Morikawa is also set to make his PGA Tour debut this weekend (technically yesterday) at the Safeway Open. Colin shot a very solid 74 in the first round.

Speaking of the PGA Tour, Cal alum Brandon Hagy has just recently earned his tour card.

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Cal Cross Country

No.1 ranked women’s runner has committed to Cal!

Welcome to the Cal family, Brie Oakley.

GO BEARS!