About an hour into the Cal women's tennis team's singles matches against No. 12 Stanford on Saturday, Bears coach Amanda Augustus sat on a bench facing court two and had a feeling.

No. 8 Cal had already lost the doubles point to the Cardinal, and the Bears led on three singles courts. For Cal to avenge its March loss to Stanford, one of two players was going to have to come back from a set down.

"I knew it was going to come down to either Marina (Cossou) or Bojana (Bobusic)," Augustus said.

After all other matches had ended, with the teams tied at 3-3 and second place in the Pac-10 hanging in the balance, Cossou out-ran, out-toughed and outlasted Cardinal junior Lindsey Burdette in three sets (4-6, 7-6(5), 6-2) on the second court to give the Bears a 4-3 win at Hellman Tennis Complex.

With the victory, Cal (17-4, 7-1 in the Pac-10) dropped the Cardinal (17-4, 6-2) to third place in the Pac-10-its worst-ever finish in the conference-and claimed sole possession of second behind champion USC.

Cossou forced the decisive third set by defeating Burdette in a second-set tiebreaker, extending a match that went back and forth just as often as the heads of the people watching.

When the players came back out for the start of the third, the Bears' sophomore was moving noticeably better than Burdette, who muscled up on shots early but appeared to run out of steam late on an especially hot afternoon.

"I felt very tired at the end of the second set and the beginning of the third set," Cossou said. "But I guess maybe she was more tired than me later. And I started feeling better maybe because the rallies weren't as intense as before."

Burdette actually won the first game of the third set, but the final 20-plus-ball rally seemed to tire her out. Cossou rolled off five straight games after that and closed out the match on an overhead with Burdette serving at love-40 in the eighth game.

"Once she got that second set, I was pretty confident that as long as she stayed focused, she'd get it done," Augustus said of Cossou. "She's fitter than the other girl and that's a big weapon."

Still, Cossou had to weather two mini-collapses to even reach the third set. She squandered a 4-2 lead in the first, allowing Burdette to win four straight games. And up 5-3 in the second with three break points, Cossou gave all three away and lost the next three games.

She actually fended off a match point for Burdette at 5-6 to force the tiebreaker. But at that point, momentum took a stark turn.

"Once Marina won the second set, we knew she wasn't going to let (Burdette go)," senior Claire Ilcinkas said.

Ilcinkas won both her singles and doubles matches in her final appearance at Hellman. She, Bobusic and Marion Ravelojaona -- Cal's three seniors -- were greeted after the match with a farewell sign from the rest of the team.

"It was amazing," Ilcinkas said. "Finishing with a 4-3 victory over Stanford in our final day here-it was great."

Tags: CAL WOMEN'S TENNIS, MARINA COSSOU, AMANDA AUGUSTUS