Bears Nab First Home Win In Conference Opener

Recap, photo courtesy of University of California, Berkeley

BERKELEY – California field hockey finally nabbed its first win at home, and the Golden Bears didn't just slip by with a victory. It was a resounding statement to open conference play. The Bears downed UC Davis 5-1 in the America East opener to improve to 3-6 on the season and earn their first triumph on Underhill Field.

"I told the team that if we could keep it together, we would have a chance to break it open late in the half, and we actually broke it open early on," said head coach Shellie Onstead. "It was more about looking at the big picture and putting a full game together. Because we played everybody and kept the scoreline up, I think we did that."

It took just eight minutes for Cal to break the game open with two unanswered goals, first on a penalty corner goal from sophomore Janaye Sakkas. Sophomore teammate Melina Moore inserted the ball in the 5th minute, and though UC Davis keeper Beth Lee stopped it, the ball landed right at Sakkas' feet for her to tap in. It was Sakkas' team-high fifth goal of the season.

Less than four minutes later, senior Nicole Henriksson got on the board for the first time this season with a tip into the cage, courtesy of a ball from freshman Femke Delissen, who earned her first assist in a Cal uniform.

Cal scored two more goals before halftime, both off penalty corners. Junior Mara Gutierrez struck after Moore inserted the ball near the 26-minute mark, and then senior Jamie Stankiewiz scored her first goal of the season after connecting with sophomore Keats Iwanaga during a corner play.

At the half, Cal shut out UC Davis 4-0 after outshooting the Aggies 9-1 with a 5-1 corner advantage.

The second half started with a brief lull by the Bears, which allowed UC Davis to score on a penalty corner at 51:11 thanks to Eden Borsack. Cal quickly tightened up, and played a balanced second half.

A penalty corner in the final seconds of the game added the cherry on top for the Bears. Iwanaga earned a penalty stroke after her corner shot touched the goalkeeper's body, which she successfully placed into the cage for her first collegiate goal.

"I was pretty confident in it because (Shellie Onstead) makes us do it under pressure," she said.

For the game, Cal outshot UC Davis 13-6 and led 9-6 in corners.

Cal is 3-2 in its last five games with an offense that has scored two or more goals in four of the last five.

"We struggled a bit at the beginning of the season and we're on an uphill battle right now, but we're working hard," Henriksson said. "I think we're on the way up."

HEAD COACH SHELLIE ONSTEAD'S TAKE

On what the team looked to improve on heading into game:
One of the things that we're trying to work on is that we can put 70 minutes together. A lot of times the fall-off has been at the end of each half. My point to them was time management and game management. I told them that if we could keep it together we would have a chance to break it open late in the half, and we actually broke it open early on. It was more about looking at the big picture and putting a full game together. Because we played everybody and kept the scoreline up, I think we did that.

On how team has improved recently:
Any season, you're trying to put certain building blocks in place. We were really focusing early in the season on getting our defense in place. We had some young players in there. Now, we're addressing more of the attack and we're seeing the results of that.

On team's work in practice earlier in the week:
We worked a lot on midfield posession this week. I put the attacking midfielders to task at practice and they responded pretty well. We were down a pretty key player today with Lindsay (Mathison) out, so we were really happy that their posession improved and everybody stepped up.

GOLDEN BEAR GOALS
4:39 – Janaye Sakkas (unassisted)
Sakkas says: Keats swept the ball and the goalie cleared it right to me, so I pushed it in.

7:43 – Nicole Henriksson (assisted by Femke Delissen)
Henriksson says: It was a lot of movement up top. I was crossing the circle and a ball came in, and I tipped it in past the goalie and celebrated with my team.

25:55 – Mara Gutierrez (assisted by Melina Moore)
Gutierrez says: I got the ball off the corner and shot it, stick side of the goalie. It hit the left corner of the goal.

30:36 – Jamie Stankiewiz (assisted by Katrina Carter, Keats Iwanaga)
Stankiewiz says: It was awesome. Any one of us could have scored that goal. I just happened to be there to fill in near the spot. I ran to the post, turned and made eye contact with Keats. I saw the ball right at the middle of her stick and I knew she was going to do a deflective sweep, so I was just there.

70:00 – Keats Iwanaga (penalty stroke)
Iwanaga says: It was on a short corner. I flicked it to the right side and it hit the post player in the body, so we got the flick. We practice it really frequently, so I was pretty confident in it because (Shellie Onstead) makes us do it under pressure.

UC DAVIS GOAL
51:11 – Eden Borsack

NEXT UP
Cal completes a two-game homestand on Friday, Oct. 7 by hosting Bay Area rival Stanford at 6 p.m. on Underhill Field.