April 10, 2011
Box Score
FRESNO, Calif. -
Junior midfielder Vail Horn scored four goals and freshman midfielder Amelia Burke added a hat trick to power California to its most lopsided win of the season with a 15-2 conference victory over Fresno State on Sunday at Bulldog Stadium. Five teams - including the Golden Bears - are still alive in the race to qualify for four spots in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament.
With Sunday's win, the Bears improved their overall record to 9-6 (3-2 in the MPSF), while Fresno State stayed winless at 0-11 (0-5 in the MPSF). The other teams contending for spots in the April 29-May 1 MPSF Tournament are Stanford, Oregon, Denver and UC Davis. Fresno State and Saint Mary's, which lost to Oregon, 16-10, on Sunday, have fallen out of MPSF Tournament contention.
Fresno State, now in its third season of existence, has never won a game.
"Something we've been trying to do all season is to be consistent no matter who we're playing," Cal head coach Theresa Sherry said. "The biggest thing we needed to do was make sure we were prepared after playing Friday. We still didn't put a full 60 minutes together, but we did have a better first 10 minutes, which we were working on. There definitely were some nice things we did throughout the day."
Reminiscent of Cal's 11-2 win over Villanova on March 27 - when the Bears bolted out to an 11-0 lead - the Bears scored the game's first eight goals against Fresno State to claim an 8-0 lead on freshman midfielder Hayley Olson's first career goal at 9:34 into the first half. Senior midfielder Chapin Jackson assisted Olson. Cal sophomore midfielder Megan Takacs scored the game's first goal at 3:39 and three Bears - Burke, Horn and junior midfielder Tara Arolla - each notched two strikes in the early going.
"I was really happy for Hayley," Sherry said. "She started today for the first time and she's been doing a good job for us in the circle on the draws [with three Sunday]. She's becoming a more mature player. She has the authority to finish, and I'm happy she was able to do that for the first time today. We are going to need her and the other younger players to step up this week and hopefully in two weeks if we can make it to the tournament. Hopefully this is a good start for her."
The Bulldogs scored their first goals in the all-time series with Cal when Taylor Fiehler and Kara Concheck tallied goals in the first half.
Cal responded with a 7-0 run - including three more in the first half - to close out the game. The Bears took an 11-2 lead into halftime. Cal dominated the game, especially the first half, in which it outscored the Bulldogs, 21-7. The Bears outshot FSU, 33-12, for the game.
Four different Bears - Horn, sophomore attacker Alexa Rozelle, Burke and Takacs - scored in the second half and freshman goalkeeper Megan McGinnis replaced senior starter Allie Shropshire to blank the Bulldogs in the game's last 30 minutes. McGinnis made five saves, while Shropshire made four saves in the first half.
Cal plays its last regular-season game at Denver on April 16 at noon PT.
