Sept. 5, 2009

Final Stats

BERKELEY - Behind two goals from sophomore Jessica Kreck, the California field hockey team beat Kent State, 2-0, Saturday morning at Maxwell Family Field. The Golden Bears are now 2-0 on the young season, and have yet to surrender a goal. Also impressive in Cal's performance today was sophomore goalkeeper Maddie Hand who recorded four saves in the second half to preserve the shutout.

"I think we made a really good step from last week," head coach Shellie Onstead said. "I can see in the players that they're excited about that. There's still a lot of things that need to be better, but they're somewhat easy fixes in terms passing, receiving and things like that. Tactically and presence-wise, we stepped up."

Kreck tallied her first goal in the 17th minute of the match. She deflected a pass from sophomore Megan Shimojima that just trickled past the Kent State keeper, Caroline Suitch, and into the cage. Shimojima earned an assist on the score. After going into halftime with a 1-0 lead, Kreck recorded the insurance goal in the 46th minute, as she was able to find some space in front of Suitch and blast a shot past her.

"The first one was a deflection coming from the left," Kreck said. "I just sort of tapped it in; it just barely rolled over. I was kind of scared it wasn't going to go in actually. We had been practicing that, so it was nice to do it in the game. The second one, I was actually trying to get a corner, but the lane opened up and I just hit it in the left side of the cage."

Kreck posted a total of four shots in the contest, three of which were on goal.

"All of us coaches are trying to take credit for moving her to forward," Onstead said. "She is a deceptive player. She's a good midfielder because she can control the ball under pressure well, but to give her room up front, it was a matter of me being comfortable with the freshmen as inners. We decided that would work, so we pushed Kreck up front, and that's been a really nice change."

Kent State's Debbie Bell notched a game-high five shots. Cal junior forward Natalie Nurnberg had two shots on goal.

Kent State (2-2) outshot the Bears, 9-8, and also earned one more penalty corner than Cal (4-3).

Another focal point in the victory was the play of Hand in the second half. Hand, who split time with fellow keeper Haleh Nourani, only played in the second half and collected four saves. Both Hand and Nourani have not been scored upon yet through the first two games. Suitch, posted three saves of her own, despite allowing two goals.

"I'm rotating Maddie and Haleh to give both of them some experience and see who rises up," Onstead said. "They both had a good half, but Maddie got more opportunities."

Cal finishes its season-opening three-game homestand tomorrow afternoon when the Bears clash with Northeastern at 1 p.m. at Maxwell Family Field.