California Golden Bears Athletics
California
Oregon
No. 19 Cal Opens Pac-10 Season With 2-1 Victory Over No. 25 Oregon
10/9/2009 12:00 PM | Women's Soccer
Oct. 9, 2009
EUGENE, Ore. - The No. 19 California women's soccer team kicked off Pac-10 season with a 2-1 victory over No. 25 Oregon on Friday night in front of 699 fans at Pape' Field. The Golden Bears improve to 7-3-1 and 1-0-0 in conference play, and the Ducks now stand at 8-3-1 and 0-1-0.
"This was a great win for us," Cal head coach Neil McGuire said. "Oregon is well-coached and a very good team. It's never easy to go on the road in the Pac-10. But the players fought hard for each other, and should be very proud."
The Golden Bears found the back of net early - the earliest they have this season - with a goal by junior forward Alex Morgan just 1:28 minutes into the match. Morgan earned her team-leading ninth goal of the year by beating the keeper from 20 yards out on a free kick.
"It was a big relief for our team," Morgan said. "But at the same time, since we scored early, we had to hold the lead for the rest of the game, which is harder than it is to be tied."
Cal, which is now 7-0-1 when scoring first coming into the match, held the 1-0 advantage for the next 46 minutes of play. The second half began similarly to the first, but with the Ducks scoring the early goal - 2:46 into the second 45 minutes. Teresa Bowns received a pass from Scout Libke and scored with a left-footed boot.
It took the Bears all of 21 seconds to regroup and respond with a score of their own. At 48:07, Redshirt junior forward Lisa Kevorkian rebounded the ball off a keeper deflection from a touch by Morgan and powered in the game-winning goal.
"My heart didn't swell as much this time," Kevorkian noted. "Since Alex had just [gotten tangled up] by the goalie, there was a moment of uncertainty. But once it was confirmed, it felt like every goal does - euphoric."
From there, the Bears took just two more shots in the remaining minutes - a wide one from Morgan (67:18) and one by Kevorkian (83:12) that Oregon's keeper Cody Miles grabbed.
With 12 shots to the Bears' 10, Oregon narrowly outshot the Bears, who are outshooting their opponents, 158-81, thus far in 2009. Morgan paced Cal with four shots (three on goal), Kevorkian had two, and Camellia Senemar and Katie Suits each took one of their own. Redshirt senior goalkeeper Rosie Aguilera played the full 90 between the posts, making just two stops, for her second win of the year.
To close the first weekend of conference play, the Bears trek to Corvallis, Ore., to take on Oregon State (8-3-1, 0-1-0) on Sunday at noon. The Beavers suffered a 3-0 loss at the hands of No. 1 Stanford (12-0-0, 1-0-0) with 1,252 fans in attendance at OSU's Paul Lorenz Field on Friday evening.
Golden Bears Notes
- Alex Morgan tied her career high of nine goals in a season, a feat which she achieved last season. Averaging 0.818 goals per game, Morgan is on track to score roughly 16 by the close of the regular season.
- Redshirt senior Torrey Delaplane, who rejoined the team this week, saw her first action of the 2009 campaign with 14 minutes on the pitch.
- The Bears extend their all-time series advantage over the Ducks to 11-1-1.
- With her third game-winning goal of the year, Lisa Kevorkian is now tied with Alex Morgan for first on the squad.
- Lisa Kevorkian saw 70 minutes of play after sustaining an injury against Sacramento State (Oct. 2).
- Morgan's goal in the second minute was the first goal scored in any game this season. The previous earliest goal occurred at 2:22 against SMU on Sept. 13 by Katrin Omarsdottir.
- Alex Morgan's goal, which was unassisted, was her third solo goal this season while this is the second time this year that Morgan had the assist on a Kevorkian score.
- Cal took no corner kicks for the first time in 2009.
- This was Cal's first win in three games after dropping 1-0 decisions to Sacramento State (Sept. 25) and Cal Poly (Oct. 2) in overtime and battling to a 1-1 draw with No. 11 Santa Clara (Oct. 4).
