In front of over 1,400 spectators at Edwards Stadium, it looked as though the No. 25 Cal women's soccer team might pull off a tie-or even a win-against No. 3 Stanford in the Bears' regular-season finale.

Cal held the Cardinal to a scoreless tie during a rainy first half and kept the fans hopeful, but lost its composure in the second to fall, 3-0.

"I thought the first half we played very well," coach Neil McGuire said. "We stuck to our game plan and we held possession of the ball, which is what we thought was the most important. The second half, I don't know what happened. I think we just stopped possessing the ball successfully."

The Bears are now 10-8-1 overall and 3-5-1 in the Pac-10, while Stanford improves to 22-7 and 8-1.

"It's disappointing," co-captain and senior Valerie Barnes said. "It's hard to go out losing 3-0 to your rival."

The Cardinal dominated the game in terms of shots, notching nine in the first half and 13 in the second. However, Cal gave Stanford goalie Kira Maker her share of challenges in the first half, forcing her to make three stops in the period with two shots from Alex Morgan and one from Katrin Omarsdottir.

On the other side of the field, senior goalkeeper Rosie Aguilera made three saves of her own during the first 45 minutes to keep the game up in the air.

"I feel like our first-half performance was good," senior Nikki Schrey said. "We were really focusing on possession and I think we were really able to do that in the first half."

But although the Bears held the Cardinal at bay for the first half of the game, as the weather cleared up, things started going downhill for Cal.

Within six minutes of the second half, Stanford's Kelley O'Hara hit a shot from 18 yards out to the lower right corner-just out of Aguilera's reach.

Seven minutes later, the Cardinal scored again with a shot to the right post from Christen Press.

And while Stanford barraged Aguilera and substitute Gina Pellegrini with a series of shots, the Bears had just four in the second half. The closest Cal came to a goal was in the 70th minute, when Barnes took a shot that went just wide.

"It just came down to execution," Schrey said. "We didn't get any in the back of the net and we had a couple things that kind of slipped up and were in their favor."

Press scored the game's final goal in the 84th minute with a shot to the back left corner to seal the win for the Cardinal.

"Stanford is clearly a talented team, and they definitely deserved to win today," Barnes said.

The loss to Stanford dealt a blow to the Bears' chances of getting an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

"We haven't had a great run in the latter part of conference play, so I'm not fully sure whether or not we're going to have the chance to go to the tournament," McGuire said.

The team finds out Monday evening if they make the cut.

"When we win it, we need to keep the ball," Barnes said. "Ultimately, that's what we're going to focus on. If we do make it to the playoffs, that will continue to be our focus."

Tags: CAL WOMEN'S SOCCER, NEIL MCGUIRE, VALERIE BARNES, ALEX MORGAN