On Sunday afternoon, the UCLA Bruins hosted the Cal Berkeley Golden Bears at Spieker Aquatic Center. After defeating Stanford yesterday, the Bruins kept their momentum to defeat Cal Berkeley today, 18-12. In four quarters, the Bruins were able to take down the Golden Bears and hand them their second loss this weekend, after they lost to USC yesterday.
UCLA’s #24 Ryder Dodd won the sprint in the first quarter, giving UCLA the early advantage. Early in the game, Cal’s #5 Dominic Brown scored the first goal for the Golden Bears, giving them the early lead. Soon after, Cal is able to find their way to the net and score again bringing them to 2-0. But just seconds after, UCLA’s #12 Bode Brinkema comes around to get their first goal of the game. With just over a minute left in the first quarter, UCLA’s #15 Chase Dodd scored to tie the game with Cal, 3-3. And shortly after, UCLA’s #11 Noah Rowe hit a buzzer-beater to give UCLA the first lead of the game, 4-3.
Heading into the second quarter, UCLA’s #2 Frederico Jucá Carsalade won the sprint and then followed it with a goal to further extend UCLA’s lead, 5-3. The Bruins’ lead continued to extend when #9 Gray Carson scored back to back goals in under a minute, bringing UCLA 7-3. Cal quickly answered back with two goals but it wasn’t enough to pass the Bruins, they still led, 7-5. The first half ended with the Bruins leading, 8-5.
Coming out of halftime, the Bruins’ offense really came through as they scored their most in this quarter. They scored a total of seven goals while Cal had four, their most in a quarter as well. Brinkema won the sprint for UCLA and scored to extend the Bruins’ lead to 9-5. Ryder Dodd then scored a 6-on-4 goal to bring the Bruins to 10-5. Later in the third quarter, Cal’s head coach Kirk Everist was given a yellow card. And about two minutes later, he was given a yellow/red card, his second warning.
Cal was later given a penalty allowing UCLA a penalty shot. Ryder Dodd shot for UCLA and scored, sending the Bruins’ bench into celebration as they took their largest lead of the game, 14-7. The Golden Bears then took a timeout and coming out of their timeout, they scored twice to try and close the gap but UCLA responded by scoring as well and with under a minute left Cal took another timeout. The third quarter ended 15-9 with UCLA still leading.
The fourth and final quarter of the game had a lot of exclusions from both teams and a penalty was given to UCLA’s #13 Ben Liechty. This gave Cal the opportunity to score on a penalty shot, which they missed. Three minutes into the last quarter and neither team had scored yet. UCLA called a timeout and soon after their timeout, #6 Ben Larsen scored for UCLA to bring back their seven point lead, 16-9. Cal was able to score back to back goals but with only three minutes left in the game it wasn’t looking good for the Golden Bears.
With just under two minutes left, Cal was called for another penalty, and Ryder Dodd once again went up to shoot for UCLA and scored. With the Bruins’ now up 18-12, the Golden Bears were in desperate need of a comeback in hopes to take down the No. 2 Bruins. They continued to battle it out for the remainder of the game but the Bruins’ defense was just too strong. The game ended at 18-12, giving the Bruins their second win of the weekend. UCLA’s Ryder Dodd finished the game strong for the Bruins with seven goals.
The Bruins now have two games left in the regular season. They will play their last home game this Friday against Pacific and their last game will be USC on Nov. 15.
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Featured Image Photographed by Asher Nee/BruinLife
