No. 5 Bears beat two strong teams

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Apr 1, 2008 | by Chris Nguon

BERKELEY -- The California women's water polo team is back on track.

A week after getting upset twice, the No. 5 Golden Bears had no trouble with their competition, taking down two strong programs Sunday afternoon.

Sophomore driver Meghan Corso scored two goals in the morning at Spieker Aquatics Complex to help the Bears whip Brown 14-3. In the nightcap, senior driver Molly Hayes notched four goals to push Cal to a 14-7 victory over No. 14 Hartwick.

Twelve players scored at least one goal in the doubleheader. The Bears scored nine of the first 10 goals overall against Hartwick, after also jumping ahead early against Brown.

Goalie Heather Stuart had 16 saves in the two games.

Cal (14-7) will travel to Los Angeles to face UCLA on Saturday then get a rematch with first-place Stanford in two weeks.

Men's swimming

No. 11 Cal had a successful final day at the 2008 NCAA Championships, held at the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center in Federal Way, Wash. The Bears were paced by sophomore Sean Mahoney's third-place finish in the 200 breaststroke in 1:54.65.

Cal also finished third in the 400 freestyle relay in 2:50.87 (William Copeland, Jernej Godec, Joe Whittington, Dominik Meichtry). Mark Eckert finished fourth in the 200 backstroke in 1:41.59, and Copeland was fourth in the 100 free in 42.49. The Bears finished in fourth place with 332.50 points, behind Arizona (500.5), Texas (406) and Stanford (344).

Other third-day results for Cal included David Russell placing 10th (1:42.70) in the 200 back. Meichtry and Godec finished 11th and 12th, respectively, in the 100 free, posting times of 42.88 and 43.18.

Freshman Martti Aljand finished sixth in the 200 breast (1:56.14), and fellow freshman Damir Dugonjic was 16th (1:58.88).

On Friday, the 200 medley relay team of Russell, Dugonjic, Godec and Copeland placed third with a school-record time of 1:24.50. The Bears' broke the former school record of 1:25.16 set in 2004.

Lacrosse

Madeleine Dale and Alyse Kennedy scored hat tricks to lead Cal to an 11-9 nonconference win over UMBC on Sunday. The Bears evened their record at 5-5, while the host Retrievers fell to 2-9.

The Retrievers Ali Levendusky led all scorers with four points (3 goals, 1 assist).

Cal freshman goalkeeper Allie Shropshire made 11 saves in her first complete game.

Women's crew

Cal won its varsity eight race against Notre Dame at the Pac-10 Challenge hosted by Stanford on Sunday at the Redwood Shores Lagoon. The Bears' No. 9 varsity eight boat, stroked by senior Candice Rediger, beat No. 14 Notre Dame by about 20 seconds. Cal won all five of its races on the day.

The Bears' varsity eight defeated three nationally ranked teams at the two-day event. They beat No. 2 Virginia and No. 5 Ohio State on Saturday.

The Bears also defeated Notre Dame in the second varsity eight race by 5 seconds and in the varsity four against by 21 seconds.

Cal's third varsity eight beat Princeton's second varsity eight by 19 seconds. The Bears claimed the novice eight event by about 15 seconds against UCLA.