It took the California field hockey team two overtimes and two shootouts, but the Golden Bears won 2-1 to get their first ACC win of the season in a thriller against Boston College at Underhill Field on Friday night. It marked Cal's first shootout game since it defeated Stanford 1-0 on Oct. 14, 2022. The victory also marked Cal's first ever against Boston College after six previous matchups.
 
The Bears (5-5, 1-3 ACC) were down 1-0 to the Eagles (4-7, 0-4) going into the fourth period but scored the equalizer on a Maya Hoepfner goal to force overtime. The drama didn't end there as Cal had to protect against two penalty corners across two overtimes and overcome a 2-0 deficit in the first shootout. Cal goalkeeper Delphine Ayitey-Hammond was tremendous defensively coming up with six saves, just one off her career high.
 
Hoepfner's goal (third of the season) came at the 9:10 mark of the fourth period after Cal earned four straight penalty corners. On the fourth attempt, Josefina Moyano was able to wrangle the inserted ball and make a pass to Hoepfner in front of the goal for the game-tying score.
 
Boston College went up 2-0 after each team had three attempts in the first shootout, but Lieve Schalk was able to score against the reigning ACC Defensive Player of the Year in the Eagles' Charlotte Kramer to keep the Bears in the match. Hammond was clutch as she was able to stop Boston College's next attempt to leave Cal with one chance to tie. Hoepfner came through again with a score to tie the shootout at 2-2 with the Eagles having one shot left which Hammond defended to force a sudden death shootout.
 
Boston College scored on their first attempt followed by Hoepfner's second goal of the shootouts. The Eagles missed on their second attempt leaving the door open for Cal and Schalk came through to score the game-winning goal.
 
"I looked at this weekend realistically and thought this would potentially be the time we would get our first ACC win," Donna Fong Director of Field Hockey Shellie Onstead said. "I kept telling the team, don't worry, we'll be ready for our next ACC match, and we worked really hard since then, had the one game here to work on things, but we've basically had sort of a training camp for two weeks. I told them for this game, you're not going to believe how much better you are than two weeks ago. I'm really excited, because we turned it around and made the changes and started believing."
 
NEXT UP
Cal hosts No. 5 Syracuse on Sunday at 1 p.m. PT.
 
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