BERKELEY – Playing with 10-men for the majority of the second half, the Cal men's soccer team fell to No. 23 Creighton, 2-0, on Sunday afternoon at Edwards Stadium. The visiting Bluejays (2-2-0) took the lead in the 36^th minute and continued to build on their advantage in the second half to hand the Golden Bears (1-2-0) their second loss of the season.

Coming off a 1-0 victory over visiting Northeastern on Friday evening, the Golden Bears came out of the gates strong, matching Creighton's energy and physicality from the opening whistle. Cal created several dangerous opportunities in the opening half, including a strike by Samuel Ebstein in the 32^nd minute that went just wide of the upper 90.

However Creighton took the lead soon after, as Noah Franke finished from close range off a driven ball by Ricky Lopez-Espin in the 36^th minute.             

"We came out today gloriously great," said Cal head coach Kevin Grimes. "We had three or four amazing chances to finish early on that we didn't. Unfortunately, we were not able to maintain that for the full 90 minutes. It was about 35 minutes of really quality play in the first half, we just couldn't sustain it the rest of the way."

Coming off a 3-0 loss to top-ranked Stanford on Friday night, the 23^rd-ranked Bluejays continued to play with urgency in the second half of Sunday's match. Creighton scored its second goal of the game in the 55^th minute when Lopez-Espin outran his defender and finished one-on-one against Cal goalkeeper Drake Callender.

The two-goal deficit proved even more difficult when Golden Bear freshman Christopher Grey received his second yellow card of the match just minutes later, and Cal was forced to play with 10 men for the final 34:55.

Creighton scored again in the 76^th minute as Luke Haakenson finished on a give-and-go with teammate Lucas Stauffer. On the day, the Bluejays outshot the Bears 12-10, including a 7-4 advantage in shots on target.

Cal held a 6-4 advantage in corner kicks and was paced by four shots from senior Paul Salcedo-Borrego. Callender, a sophomore from Fair Oakes, California, finished the game with four saves.

The Bears will be back in action on Saturday, September 9, hitting the road for a 7 p.m. match against Portland.