The California field hockey team nearly got its best win in program history but fell short due to a late goal in the fourth period by No. 3 Virginia for a 3-2 loss at Underhill Field in Berkeley on Friday night. The Golden Bears (3-5, 0-3 ACC) were outshot by the Cavaliers (7-0, 3-0) just 14-11.
The two Cal scores were the most given up by Virginia so far this season and the 11 shots given up were the second most.
Liz Klompmaker was aggressive all night as she had a season and game-high eight shots.
The Bears went up 2-1 after the first period after Klompmaker hit a shot from the edge of the sideline that found
Olivia Sharratt in front of the net who was able to tap it in for the first goal of the game at the 12:09 mark.
Cal earned a penalty corner just three minutes later and
Holly Pears inserted the ball to
Maya Hoepfner who passed the ball to Klompmaker for her 10th goal of the season.
The Cavaliers would tie the game at 2-2 after earning a penalty stroke that led to a goal at the 7:26 mark in the second period. Both teams then went scoreless in the third period even as Virginia pressured with nine shots in the period.
It was the Cavalier score with 8:24 remaining in the fourth period that ultimately proved to be the game winner. The Bears made every effort in the last few minutes to tie the game by pulling goalie
Delphine Ayitey-Hammond with two minutes remaining. Within the last minute, Cal earned a penalty corner, but
Victoria Beiro's shot went wide followed by Klompmaker who also went wide with just five seconds left.
"I'm very proud of the team and you could see the growth from last weekend," Donna Fong Director of Field Hockey said. "They came out with a lot more intensity and they were more purposeful and had a lot more belief. I feel like our only sort of downtime was the beginning of the third quarter and they had a lot more shots than us that quarter. But other than that, we played it even and I'm really proud of that piece at the end, when you take the goalie out. It's a set piece, a high risk and they just executed it to perfection. We got what we needed in the penalty corner. I'm happy with the shot count, happy with stats. It would have been nice to get it, but we're very proud of the team."
UP NEXT
Cal hosts UC Davis on Sunday at 1 p.m. PT.
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