CAL AT SANTA CLARA
Saturday, Sept. 22 | 7 PM PT | Stevens Stadium | Santa Clara, Calif.
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The Cal men's soccer team closes out its nonconference season Saturday when it travels southward to take on Bay Area rival Santa Clara. The Bears are coming off a successful weekend in which they notched a victory over Delaware and then played No. 15 UMass Lowell to a 1-1, a match in which they outshot the River Hawks 22-10 and dominating possession for much of the match. Saturday's match will mark just the second true road contest of the season for Cal, which has played five of its first seven at home. The Bears' only other road match was at Pacific on Aug. 31. The Bears also played a neutral-site game against Sac State on Sept. 6 at Avaya Stadium, the home of the MLS San Jose Earthquakes.

 
SHINYA SHINES
Forward Shinya Kadono has emerged as an early-season leading candidate for Pac-12 Player of the Year.  The senior from Irvine, Calif., enters the week leading the conference with seven goals and 16 points while ranking second with 26 shots. Kadono also ranks in the top-10 nationally in goals, goals per game and points. His four goals and nine points during a 6-2 win over Sac State on Sept. 6 are tied for the most by any player in the country in a match this season. Kadono was a United Soccer Coaches NCAA All-Far West Region Second Team pick last year and a member of the 2018 Preseason All-Pac-12 Team.

NUPHAUS JOINS U19 NATIONAL TEAM
Freshman JJ Foe Nuphaus missed two matches earlier this month after being called up to the U-19 U.S. Men's National Team for an invitational at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla.  Nuphaus has spent time with the U-19 team previously, as well as the U-17 and U-14 teams. Nuphaus, who was ranked as the 39th-best player in the country last year by Top Drawer Soccer, has started and played every minute of the five matches in which he has been available this season.

YOUTH MOVEMENT
Twelve of Cal's 24 student-athletes are redshirt freshmen or true freshmen, and the majority of them have made significant contributions so far this season. Redshirt freshman Alonzo Del Mundo and true freshmen Ian Lonergan and Taylor Davila have started all seven matches while true freshman JJ Foe Nuphaus has started each of the five matches for which he has been available (Nuphaus missed two matches while training with the U.S. U-19 National Team).  Fellow freshmen Jonathan Estrada, Kaleo Fernandez and Lucas Churchill have all each made contributions as well. Del Mundo scored the game-winning goal during Cal's 2-1 victory over Delaware last Friday. Nuphaus was ranked as the nation's 39th-best player by Top Drawer Soccer while Lonergan came in at No. 61 and Davila at No. 66.

CLASSROOM PROWESS
The Bears have established quite a legacy in the classroom, with 10 student-athletes receiving Pac-12 All-Academic honors last season. Two of the three that earned First Team honors - Halil Beqaj and Simon Lekressner - are back this season, Second-Teamers Sam Ebstein and Sam Junqua and honorable mention picks Shinya Kadono and Spencer Held are also on this year's roster. Aravind Sivakumar, who graduated last spring, was the 2017 Pac-12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year and was named a CoSIDA Academic Third Team All-American. Not suprisingly, earlier this week the Bears earned the Neumark Award, given to the teams at Cal with the highest cumulative GPA. Cal's men's soccer team won the award for the small sport category after compiling a combined 3.301 GPA during the past academic year.

ABOUT SANTA CLARA (2-5)
• After losing five in a row, the Broncos beat Cal Poly 2-0 on Tuesday
• SO Alan Camacho Soto made his first career start vs. Cal Poly and had two assists
• G Henning Jolivet made his season debut vs. Cal Poly and posted a shutout