BERKELEY – No. 21 California volleyball battled No. 1 Stanford in a 25-20, 17-25, 25-27, 25-19 defeat in the Pac-12 opener in front of 4,178 at Haas Pavilion on Thursday night.

The Bears (10-1) went back-and-forth with the defending national champion Cardinal in all four sets behind a raucous crowd, the second-most ever in attendance for a home Cal volleyball game, just 11 shy of the all-time record.

"First, I want to say thank you to the entire Cal family for showing amazing support throughout the match, I'm speechless," Cal head coach Sam Crosson said. "It was the students, alumni, the band, supporters of the program, locals who just wanted to see what Cal volleyball was about, everyone. It was a rockin' atmosphere tonight and I can only say thank you. It was as loud as I've ever heard it in here."

California used the backing of the crowd early in the first and turned a 7-7 tie into a 13-8 lead after taking six of the next seven points. Stanford (7-2) fought back to tie the set at 17, but after a Cal timeout the Bears responded with a run of three straight points to pull away and take the first frame.

The Cardinal answered in the second set, and a back-and-forth third set went to Stanford in extra points after Cal fought off two different set points to tie it, before the Cardinal finally put it away.

Junior Preslie Anderson, who led the country in hitting percentage coming into the night tallied 11 kills on a hitting clip of .455 to pace California. Senior Maddie Haynes added 10 kills, while junior Mima Mirkovic added eight kills and 11 digs. Sophomore Lauren Forte notched a season-high nine kills and senior Emma Smith recorded 12 digs the tenth time this season she's been in double figures. 

"We're getting there in terms of our belief, and that's something we talked about after the match," Crosson said. "We were close to going five tonight and then who knows from there. I thought out of all our preseason matches we seemed more tentative from the service line tonight. We hit the net a bit too much tonight and that tells me we were trying to be too perfect. I think heading into Saturday we need to get back to being more consistent in terms of being fearless. We need to go out there with that mentality on Saturday."

Up Next: The Bears return to action on Saturday, finishing the two-match opening weekend of Pac-12 play with a 1 p.m. first serve against Washington State inside Haas Pavilion.