LOS ANGELES – No. 7 California won its fifth straight match and opened the SoCal Invitational with a 10-5 victory over No. 10 UC Irvine at the Spieker Aquatics Center on Friday afternoon.
 
The Bears (8-3), who are the seventh-seeded team in the 16-team tournament field, built a comfortable lead by halftime and were paced with two-goal performances by Safak Simsek and Nikolaos Papanikolaou. It was Cal's second win against UC Irvine (5-3) this season; the Bears bested the Anteaters 11-6 on Sept. 8 at the Triton Invitational.
 
UC Irvine scored the match's first goal in just over one minute of play before Cal took control of the contest shortly after. Joe Molina equalized the score with an unassisted goal before Miles O'Brien-Schridde pushed the Bears ahead at the 4:44-mark of the first quarter. Cal led the rest of the way and raced out to a six-goal lead midway through the fourth period.
 
Adrian Weinberg was sharp throughout the game, tallying seven saves. With Cal in control of the match, Weinberg was relieved by Frederick Houghton, who played the final three minutes and 30 seconds.
 
In addition to their two-goal efforts, Simsek had a team-best three steals and Papanikolaou led Cal with three exclusions earned. Eight total Bears scored in the victory, including freshmen Garrett Dunn and Jake Stone.

COACH EVERIST'S TAKE
"We had a good start to the SoCal Invitational," said head coach Kirk Everist. "We had a little let down in the third quarter, but finished it out. We're looking forward to a great challenge tomorrow against an excellent UCLA team."
 
NOTABLES

• Simsek pushed his season goals total to 28. He has scored at least twice in 10 of Cal's 11 matches.
• Papanikolaou extended his multi-goal streak to eight matches.
• After being held scoreless in the first eight games of his career, Stone has scored in each of the last two contests.
• Cal was 0-for-3 on power-play opportunities, but did score on 2-of-3 penalty shots.
• Weinberg posted a .636 save percentage, making seven saves against 11 shots.
• Frederick Houghton made his season debut at goalkeeper on Friday. He made one save in 3:30 of action.

NEXT TIME
Cal will face tournament co-host and No. 2 national seed UCLA (7-0) in its first of two matches on Saturday at 8 a.m. (PT). With Friday's victory, Cal advanced into the winner's side of the bracket and will play its three remaining games at UCLA's Spieker Aquatics Center.
 
Depending on the outcome of its match vs. UCLA, Cal will play a second time on Saturday at 1:20 p.m. or 2:40 p.m. (PT).

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