BERKELEY - Motivated to get a win on Senior Day, the California women's lacrosse team fought hard against No. 16 Colorado, but the Buffaloes pulled away at the end and defeated the Golden Bears, 18-11, Sunday afternoon from California Memorial Stadium. 

Caroline Corzel, Eliza Christman and Kirsten Swanson each recorded hat tricks, while Meredith Haggerty collected a career-high nine draws. Swanson added an assist to give her four points on the day. Nikki Zaccaro posted three assists. 

Cal briefly held a 2-1 lead after Christman scored her first goal on a free-position shot. Colorado took control by scoring six unanswered, but back-to-back goals from Swanson to close out the first half had the Bears feeling good only trailing by three at halftime, 7-4.

"We got a lot of offensive opportunities from the start," head coach Brooke Eubanks said. "Jenny made some key saves when our defenders were forcing them to shoot from a low angle, and we were chasing our shots behind. Those are all momentum builders."

The Bears and the Buffaloes traded goals through the first 10 minutes of the second half, but the Bears couldn't get the deficit to less than three. Colorado scored four of the final five goals in the final five minutes of regulation to earn the victory. 

"Colorado is a fantastic team," Eubanks said. "They have the complete team where you really need to be on your game if you want to make it a game against them. For the most part, I'm very proud of our performance. I think we've made a lot of progress from game-to-game and from the first time we saw them. I think that's an exciting thing about our conference, having these home-and-away games, and we've really benefited from that."

Haggerty and Koehler combined for 13 of Cal's 14 draws on the day. Koehler added four to the nine by Haggerty. Koehler now ranks tied for third in school history with 133 career draws, while Haggerty is second with 143. Megan Takacs (2010-13) is first with 174. On the school single-season rankings, Haggerty moved up to third with 64 draws, while Koehler remains in second with 70. Megan Takacs' total of 72 in 2013 is first. 

Wilkens made eight saves in a game for the 34th time in her career. She also garnered two ground balls. She now ranks second in school history with 118 career ground balls. 

In a pregame ceremony, the Bears honored their seven seniors - Camille Doan, Parker Garrett, Haggerty, Elizabeth Koehler, Chloe Landry, Kate Mattimore and Alexandra Robertson.

While Sunday was Senior Day, it was not the final home game of the season. Cal hosts Stanford Friday night at 7 p.m. from California Memorial Stadium in the regular season finale.