March 20, 2005

IRVINE, CA - The No. 6-ranked Cal women's water polo team fell to No. 13 UC Irvine, 7-6, in a Mountain Pacific Sports Federation game Sunday afternoon at Anteater Aquatics Complex. The Golden Bears outscored the Anteaters, 4-1, in the final two periods, but a 6-2 halftime deficit proved too great for Cal. The Anteaters are now 10-9 overall and 3-5 in MPSF play; while the Bears go to 11-6 and 3-3 in the MPSF.

UC Irvine took a 2-1 lead with 1:49 left in the first period on Aleah Amr's putback goal. The Bears tied the match at 2-2 with 6:16 left in the second period on sophomore Elsie Windes' first goal of the game. The Anteaters scored four unanswered goals to close out the half including Erica Nicholson's buzzer-beating lob from 20 meters out to put UCI up 6-2 at the half.

Cal cut the lead down to 6-4 on freshman Vanessa Lindsey's power play goal with 4:18 left in the third period. Robyn Kaake scored her third goal of the game for UCI with 1:36 left in the third period to give UCI a 7-4 lead heading into the final period. The Bears scored twice in the first three minutes of the fourth period to get within one goal.

Freshman keeper Lauren Machanis preserved the victory as Cal had a power play opportunity with 22 seconds remaining in the game and was unable to get the ball past Machanis.

Machanis had 12 saves on the day for UCI. Freshman goalie Heather Stuart had five saves for Cal in the opening half; Alex Feune de Colombi came in in the second half and had three saves.

The Bears will next travel to Hawaii to face the Rainbow Wahines on Wednesday, Mar. 23 at 4 p.m., before in the Hawaii International in exhibition matches Mar. 25-26.

Cal	1	1	2	2	-	6
UCI	2 	4 	1	0 	-	7
Scoring
CAL: Elsie Windes 2, Katie Card 1, Vanessa Lindsey 1,
Annie Wight 1, Lauren McGee 1
UCI: Robyn Kaake 3, Aleah Amr 2, Nikki Frish 1,
Erica Nicholson 1
Saves
CAL: Heather Stuart 5, Alex Feune de Colombi 3
UCI: Lauren Machanis 12