DAVIS – Cal (0-1) opened its season with a 9-6 defeat at UC Davis (1-1) on Friday evening at UC Davis Health Stadium. The Golden Bears never led in the contest but did pull into a tie for the third and final time at 6-6 on an unassisted goal by Marissa Kuberra with 10:22 to play before the Aggies scored the final three goals of the game inside the final 10 minutes of play.

After Kuberra tied the game, Maddie Myers scored back-to-back goals on free position shots with 9:37 and 9:09 to go in the contest to give the Aggies a two stroke lead. Kate Graham accounted for the final score with a goal at 4:10 on assist from Mia Lawrence.

Myers finished with a game-high six goals for the Aggies, while Graham, Sorana Larson and Kendall Seifert picked up one each. Kaley Stunz and Lawrence each had an assist.

Four of Myers five goals and Larson's score came on free position shots as the Aggie converted 5-of-9 compared to just 1-of-4 for the Bears with Susie Ropp the lone Cal player to score on a free position shot in her only attempt.

Nikki Zaccaro scored a pair of goals and added an assist to lead Cal scorers, while Kuberra, Quinnlyn Mason, Megan Mix and Ropp had one goal each. Kuberra also assisted on Zaccaro's second goal while Zaccaro's assist came on Mason's score.

"Our offense definitely had some first-game jitters," head coach Brooke Eubanks said. "We never really were able to get in synch with each other. It's been a long time since we've played anyone else, and we just had a problem connecting and getting into a flow. The defense played awesome. They had a ton of stops and gave the offense a lot of opportunities to try to continue to work through that."

California finished the game with 20 fouls and five yellow cards, while UC Davis had 12 fouls and no penalties.

UC Davis outshot Cal, 31-24, but goalkeeper Makayla Ward picked up a career-high 13 saves for the Bears in her first career start. UC Davis goalkeeper Taylor Mathieson had 10 saves and both goalkeepers played the entire 60 minutes.

"For Makayla to have 13 saves and start her season like that is huge," Eubanks said. "She played great."

The team's traded the first four goals of the game with Myers starting the scoring by tallying an unassisted goal with 26:44 to go in the first half before Zaccaro got the Bears on the scoreboard with an unassisted goal of her own at 24:33. Myers scored another unassisted goal at 22:02 before Zaccaro assisted on Mason's score at 19:02.

UC Davis scored the next two goals on free position shots by Larson and Myers to take a 4-2 advantage with 16:42 before the teams played scoreless lacrosse for the remainder of the first half.

Myers started the second half with her fourth goal of the game on a free position shot with 25:45 to go in the contest to give UC Davis its biggest advantage to date at 5-2 but Cal would score four of the game's next five goals to knot the score at 6-6 on Kuberra's goal at 10:22. Mix got Cal's second-half rally started with an unassisted goal at 25:07 before Zaccaro cut the lead to 5-4 at 15:07. Seifert answered at 11:47 to put UC Davis back up by two before Ropp (10:58) and Kuberra scored back-to-back to tie the score.

"There were some moments of really good stuff today, just not enough of them," Eubanks said.

Cal will host No. 8/7 Virginia at California Memorial Stadium in its home opener on Sunday (11 am PT). The Cavaliers are 2-0 after a 12-11 victory at Stanford on Friday.