DEDHAM, Mass. –Danielle Mentink steered her California field hockey squad to a weekend sweep in their first road trip of the season, snagging a career-high 12 saves in the Golden Bears' 2-1 win at Northeastern on Sunday. With a perfect 2-0 record this weekend, Cal improves to 3-3 on the season.
 
Megan Rodgers built on her strong weekend with a brace, scoring both goals at Northeastern to push her weekend total to five goals after tallying a hat trick on Friday.  Callie Rose Goodman and Sterre Van Ede each assisted on a goal for their first career assists as Golden Bears.
 
The Bears and Huskies spent nearly 50 minutes knotted up at 0-0 before Rodgers finally broke through, scoring both of her goals within a two-minute span. Waiting just inside the circle, Van Ede sent it left to Rodgers, who launched it into the cage at 49:03. At 50:18, she repeated with a backhanded shot from the center of the circle to give the Bears an insurance goal with the 2-0 lead.
 
June Curry-Lindahl fired back for the Huskies in the 57th minute with a ball that trickled in at the front of the goal, slipping past Mentink.
 
Though Cal outshot Northeastern 13-3 in the first half, the Huskies overpowered in the second half to take the 13-8 shot advantage. Mentink made 10 of her 12 saves in the second half as Northeastern unleashed a flurry of shots from five corners and also tallied a penalty stroke.
 
Mentink's career day capped off a strong weekend in the cage for the goalkeeper, adding to a 8-0 shutout against Bryant on Friday for Cal's first shutout win since 2015. The Davis, Calif. product racked up 14 total saves in 19 shots faced across the two games and allowed only one goal for a 0.64 goals against average for the weekend.

HEAD COACH SHELLIE ONSTEAD'S TAKE
On weekend's results:
"I know what we are capable of doing. The staff has known since we started preseason camp. I think what is happening is that the team is starting to realize what we can do if they play as a team and trust in the building blocks we are putting in place in training. It's a work in progress. It will always be a work in progress. We will embrace it and move on to the next one."

On game:
"We stayed with the game plan and didn't panic when they pulled their goalie. Our passing was great. Every once in a while, we got greedy and tried to be too direct, but when we move the ball our speed is difficult to contend with. I am proud of the entire group."
 
CAL'S GOALS
49:03 – Megan Rodgers (assisted by Sterre Van Ede)
 
50:18 – Megan Rodgers (assisted by Callie Rose Goodman)
 
NORTHEASTERN'S GOAL
56:41 – June Curry-Lindahl (unassisted)
 
NEXT UP
The Bears are back home to open America East conference play, starting the slate off with Pacific on Saturday at 1 p.m. at Underhill Field.