March 5, 2001

BERKELEY, Calif. - California suffered a close 10-8 loss to Davidson College Monday afternoon in what amounted to a hard fought, rainy and very cold battle inside Memorial Stadium. Senior midfielder Sarah Wheatley led the Bears offensively with three goals and an assist. Freshman attacker Emily Edwards added two more goals for Cal in the effort.

Edwards scored first in the game on an unassisted blast into the back of the net just 1:45 into the first half, but it wouldn't take long for Davidson (2-1 overall) to begin what would eventually turn into a back and forth battle of wills, tying the game 1-1 35 seconds later on a goal from senior defender Stephanie Hunter.

"It's a tough loss," said California head coach Jill Malko, "but I really feel like we were able to turn the corner on some things that we were struggling with. Just to score eight goals was huge for us. Offensively, we had been struggling."

Trading goals was the name of the game throughout the first half, with neither team gaining more than a one goal lead until Davidson grabbed a 5-3 advantage with 10:41 remaining in the period. But California (0-3 overall, 0-2 in the WWLL) would respond shortly thereafter, pulling within one, 5-4, on an Edwards goal with 4:53 left on the clock to head into halftime.

The second half opened with more of the same. Davidson tallied two more goals within the first seven minutes of the second half, taking a 7-4 lead, before a fire sparked under the Bears offensively. Junior attacker Halsey Monger was the first to respond to the call, scoring with 19:13 remaining in the half on an assist from Wheatley. Ten seconds later, Wheatley would score one of her own, unassisted, to bring Cal back within one, 7-6. That would not be it though, as freshman midfielder Julianne Wu answered again for the Bears 31 seconds later, tying the contest 7-7 with an assist from sophomore midfielder Jessie Liu.

"We were not able to score off the pass in our first two games," said Malko. "All three of those goals were off the pass and that was a point of emphasis for us all week in practice."

Davidson found a working combination themselves not much later, scoring three goals within eight minutes to open up a 10-7 lead. Wheatley was last to score for the Bears, notching her third goal of the day with 4:16 remaining on the clock. The Wildcats proved to benefit from three random goals during the course of the frigid afternoon, three goals that proved to be enough to secure the win. One of those goals ricocheted off sophomore goalkeeper Eden Coelho's stick while another ricocheted off a Davidson player's stick in a fight for the ball down low.

"That's the game right there," said Malko. "They took advantage of some garbage opportunities and capitalized on them. If we'd played this well against either Stanford or UC Davis, we would have won those games."

California returns to action this Wednesday, March 7th, when it hosts Mount St. Mary's at 4:00 p.m. inside Memorial Stadium.

GOALS: Cal - Wheatley 3, Edwards 2, LeMoult 1, Monger 1, Wu 1, Davidson - Kenchington 3, S. Otto 2, Raimondo 2, Hunter 1, Nimick 1, Matlack 1. ASSISTS: Cal - Wheatley 1, Liu 1, Davidson - Hunter 3. SAVES: Cal - Coelho 13, Davidson - Nussbaum 9. SHOTS: Cal 21, Davidson 25.