Feb. 23, 2002

BERKELEY, Calif. - The California women's lacrosse team started out the 2002 campaign just as it had hoped to, rolling over the visiting Aggies (0-2) 14-7 Saturday afternoon at Memorial Stadium. Senior attacker Laura Kado stepped-up with a five-goal performance for the Bears while sophomore midfielder Julianne Wu notched three of her own.

California (1-0, 1-0 in MPLL) jumped out to the early lead on Kado's first goal of the day just 2:37 into the game. But that lead wouldn't last for long as just under three minutes later the Aggies' Kelly Albin tied things up, scoring her first of four goals on the day, unassisted. Roughly six minutes later, Davis took their only lead of the game, 2-1, on another unassisted goal by Albin. But Cal would rally back with six more first half scores to go into halftime with the 8-4 lead.

"Our strategy was to spread the ball around and run our motion play," said head coach Jill Malko. "Today it was extremely effective for us. We had no trouble converting goals from the motion with everyone getting a touch on the ball."

The second half saw a rejuvenated Aggies team return to the field and cut the Cal lead to two, on goals by Jaime Fitzpatrick and Leslie Kado. Feeling the momentum shift and a general slowdown in the pace of the game, Malko called a timeout at the 17:21 mark to settle the team down. It seemed to get the Bears back on track as they went on to score two goals in a thirteen second span, spreading the lead to four and taking the steam out of the charging Aggies. To add insult to injury, Cal added four more insurance goals in the game's final 4:19 to seal the victory for the Golden Bears.

"One of our goals this season is to produce on offense and defense. We did that today," said Malko. "Overall the transition was awesome and the attack did a great job of moving the ball around and creating opportunities. We did a good job of scoring off of the passes ... Davis didn't have a chance to react."

Freshman Erin Hafkenschiel recorded her first collegiate point with an assist on Kelly Queisser's goal at the 16:07 mark of the second half. Kado scored four goals on just five shots, giving her a career mark of 64 goals on 149 shots, a 43 percent shooting accuracy. Wu takes the early team lead with five points on three goals and two assists.

California returns to action Tuesday, February 26, when it hosts Saint Mary's at 3:30 p.m. inside Memorial Stadium.

"Against Saint Mary's, we will need to cut down on the turnovers and maintain possession of the ball," said Malko. "Saint Mary's is a scrappy and quick team, we'll need to get to the loose balls."

BOX SCORE:
	            1      2       F
UC Davis             4      3       7
California           8      6      14

GOALS: Cal - Kado 5, Wu 3, Monger 2, Edwards 1, O'Mara 2, Wheatley 1. UC Davis - Albin 4, Buser 1, Fitzpatrick 1, Kado 1. ASSISTS: Cal - Wu 2, Queisser 2, Hafkenschiel 1, Wheatley 1, Monger 1, Edwards 1, O'Mara 1, UC Davis - Albin 1.

GOALKEEPING: (UC) Eden Coelho (60 minutes, 6 saves, 7 goals), (UCD) Jill Herschleb (60 minutes, 9 saves, 14 goals)

SHOTS: UCD 23, UC 30 GROUNDBALLS: UCD 13, UC 17 FOULS: UCD 9, UC 15 TURNOVERS: UCD 11, UC 9 CAUSED TURNOVERS: UCD 9, UC 8