Cal’s Season Ends With Pac-12 Quarterfinal Loss To ASU

STANFORD, Calif. – Cal's 2021 season came to an end Wednesday with a 17-9 loss to Arizona State in the quarterfinals of the Pac-12 Championship at Stanford Stadium. Kelly McIntyre had a hat trick for the Golden Bears by scoring the first three goals of her collegiate career but Cal never led and the score was tied only once after Arizona State's Carley Adams (29:00) and Quinnlyn Mason (25:42) exchanged a pair of unassisted goals to open the scoring.

Arizona State took charge of the contest in the opening period and established a 9-3 lead at the break. Seven different Sun Devils scored in the first half with Adams and Katie Brodsky the only members of the scoring contingent to tally twice. Arizona State was credited with assists on each of its final eight goals in the first half with six different Sun Devils picking up assists led by two each from Adams and Emily Glagolev.

In addition to Mason's early goal, Cal had scores in the first half from Olivia Dey on Nikki Zaccaro's team-leading 19th assist with 18:46 remaining and Kaia Evans unassisted at the 6:30 mark.

Cal was able to pull closer to Arizona State early in the second half by scoring four of the first six goals after intermission.

Marisa Kuberra started the comeback with an unassisted goal only 36 seconds after the break with 29:24 to go in the game but it was answered 34 seconds later by Glagolev on an assist from Brodsky.

Amanda Morse (24:07, unassisted) and Lia Willis (2010, assist Adams) exchanged the next two goals before McIntyre scored back-to-back on assists from Dey (18:47) and Evans (15:34) to pull the Bears within 11-7 just before the midway point of the second half.

Cal was able to stay within four goals for just over three-and-a-half minutes until Arizona State exploded for four goals in a span of 1:39 to thwart any comeback hopes for the Bears and move their lead to 15-7 on Emily Munro's unassisted goal with 10:11 to go.

Both teams would score twice over the final 10 minutes including Zaccaro's lone goal of the contest with 9:02 remaining and McIntyre's third with 5:03 to go on the clock.

"Kelly stepped up huge for the offense," head coach Brooke Eubanks said. "She had some really great cuts in the middle, found herself open and was able to get some really good shots off."

"It feels really great," McIntyre said about her hat trick. "I've personally been waiting a really long time to get an opportunity like this today to come into the game."

Ella Annest played in her 75th and final game for the Bears to extend her school record for games played that she set in the April 24 regular-season finale against Stanford.

Campagna had four draw controls to give her 178 for her career and 80 during the 2021 season and sole possession of both Cal's all-time and single-season records she had previously shared with Megan Tackas (174, 2010-13) and Elizabeth Koehler (76, 2018).

Cal held slim advantages in both shots (31-28) and shots on goal (23-22) but was only able to convert on 3-of-12 free position attempts including 1-of-7 in the first half. Cal did hold the Sun Devils without a free position goal on three attempts.
Call changed goalkeepers at halftime with Lily Rathbun (9 GA, 3 SV) playing the first 30 minutes and Riley Drullinger (8 GA, 2 SV) the final 30.

Adams finished with a game-high seven points for the Sun Devils on a game-high four goals and three assists, Brodsky scored six points on two goals and a game-high four assists, and Glagolev registered five points on three goals and two assists to lead the Arizona State's scoring efforts.

Cal finished the season with a 2-16 record while fourth-seeded Arizona State (10-5) advanced to face top-seeded host and unbeaten No. 13/15 Stanford (9-0) in the first semifinal of the Pac-12 Championship on Thursday (4 pm PT). Second-seeded USC (9-6) and third-seeded Colorado (7-6) square off in Thursday's second semifinal at 7:30 pm PT.

"I'm super proud of the team because this has been an extremely challenging year, obviously with COVID and restrictions," Eubanks said. "We weren't able to have our entire team practice together at once. That was a huge hurdle we had to overcome. But, I think at the end of the day, we were able to stay safe and play the game that we love. If you look back a year ago you didn't even know if we were going to be able to play and what it was going to look like, I'm super proud of the team and the sacrifices they made so that we were able to stay safe, get all of our games in, and compete and play the game that we love."

Cal did not have a single scheduled game cancelled or postponed by COVID-19 and the 18 games played by the Bears are tied for the most in the country through games of May 5.

"Not a single game cancelled this year is a true accomplishment and a testament to the example that we tried to set and also the sacrifices that we were 110% percent willing to make in order to make this season happen no matter what," Campagna said. "A lot can be said about the senior class and what we did on the field, but I think the culture that we implemented will be our true legacy. We understand what it means to be a part of Cal lacrosse and there is quite literally nothing that we won't do in order to play together and be on the field."