BERKELEY – California was unable to find its rhythm consistently on Wednesday night and suffered its first home loss of the season at the hands of second-ranked Stanford in the Big Spike match-up to open Pac-12 play.
 
The Golden Bears (8-4, 0-1 Pac-12) lost in straight sets (16-25, 23-25, 14-25) after being outhit 46-34, but did edge the Cardinal (9-1, 1-0 Pac-12) 3-2 in aces.
 
Highlighted by a valiant comeback attempt in the second set where Cal trailed by as many as eight points,  sophomore Mima Mirkovic produced key plays on her way to a team-high 11 kills. Mirkovic's clutch performance was timely for the Bears and began after a string of Stanford errors. 
 
"Mima had a hot start and that gave her some confidence and gave the team some confidence," said head coach Jennifer Dorr. "She's a feisty fiery player out there and her teammates feed off of that and then they want a piece of it. They want to make a play.
 
"For her to have a strong, solid start tonight got us off on the right emotional level," Dorr added.
 
Mirkovic posted back-to-back kills to bring things to 22-19 and put pressure on the Cardinal defense after recording a critical ace which brought things to 24-22 in set 2. Unfortunately, the Cardinal recovered after an attacking error that brought the Bears within one to finish the set ahead 2-0.
 
"I thought we had a great start and that gave us a little confidence like 'okay we can hang with these guys,'" Dorr said. "Throughout the match we learned a lot about ourselves. If we stay confident and stay aggressive consistently then the match would've been a lot closer. My takeaway was that I know we can do it, but now we need to do it consistently."
 
Stanford closed things out quickly in the final set, despite the Bears opening set 3 with a 3-1 lead and trading points early on to keep things close.
 
Cal continues league play on Sunday at 2 p.m. (PT) when it hosts Arizona State.
 
For more information on Cal volleyball, follow the team on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @CalVolleyball.