April 29, 2000

DAVIS, Calif. - California's season came to an end Saturday afternoon in the Western Women's Lacrosse League North Division I Quarterfinals with a disappointing 7-4 loss to Stanford on Aggie Field. The loss was the Bears first in the month of April, ending a seven-game winning streak. Four different Bears each scored a goal in the contest.

"I felt Stanford was able to control the tempo of this game," said California head coach Jill Malko. "Their ability to execute on the attack really made things difficult for us. To beat a team like Stanford you have to score more than four goals, and we just didn't do that today."

Stanford (7-10 overall, 5-3 in the WWLL) opened up a 2-0 lead 14:05 into the game on goals from Liz Britt and Emily Rodriguez. California (12-6 overall, 6-3 in the WWLL) responded with two quick goals of its own, first off the stick of junior midfielder Joelle LeMoult, who positioned herself centered in front of the Stanford cage to receive a feeding pass from junior midfielder Sarah Wheatley. The second goal followed just 0:13 seconds later when freshman midfielder Laura Forrest collected a pass from sophomore attacker Halsey Monger and fired into the back of the net, tying the game with 14:49 remaining in the first half. Stanford would go on to tally two more goals before the horn, compiling a 4-2 halftime lead.

"We didn't convert," said Malko. "You can't win if you don't score goals. We only had three legitimate goals in the game and that's just not going to cut it."

Sophomore attacker Laura Kado scored the Bears third goal with 24:07 to play on an assist from Wheatley to pull California to within two, 5-3. The Cardinal would score their sixth goal 8:44 minutes later. California responded with a renewed attack, scoring a fluke goal when a freshman attacker Britni Must centering pass from behind the cage was deflected into the net. The goal would pull California to within two again, 6-4, with 9:37 left on the clock, but it wouldn't be enough time for a struggling Bears offense to put together some of the magic it had achieved in past weeks this month. The Cardinal scored their final goal with 0:42 seconds left to seal a 7-4 decision.

"You know you're under the gun at that point," said Malko of her team's second half efforts. "They had nothing to lose going out hard. You could see it in our last four minutes. We were in our pressure defense and it created turnovers. Bottom line, we didn't convert into goals."

The loss concludes an amazing run for a very youthful Golden Bears squad that played the first two months of the season 5-5 before gelling into one cohesive unit, achieving a 7-1 record in the month of April.

"They completely surpassed my expectations," said Malko. "We're such a young team, I was never really sure we'd come together as a unit. But they showed an incredible amount of improvement over the season. Except for today, the month of April was a special time for us."

GOALS: Cal - Forrest 1, Kado 1, LeMoult 1, Must 1, Stanford - Britt 2, Lev 2, Rodriguez 1, Lanese 1, Osterwise 1. ASSISTS: Cal - Monger 1, Wheatley 2, Stanford - Osterwise 2, Fong 1. SAVES: Cal - Coelho 6, Stanford - Neumann 8. SHOTS: Cal 17, Stanford 26.