Cardinal

The fifth-seeded Bears fell in the Pac-12 quarterfinals to the fourth-seeded Cardinal, 4-2, ousting Cal men’s tennis from the tournament.

Though Cal had beaten Stanford two consecutive times, this time, the Cardinal took home the win, avenging their previous losses with a dominant performance that resulted in a final 6-1 score.

Despite a valiant comeback effort in singles, the Bears fell to their longtime rivals 4-3.

For the first time this season, Cal women’s gymnastics returned home to enjoy the energy of a Haas Pavilion meet, and better yet, a victorious home-opener.

Both the Bears and the Cardinal have yet to lose thus far, which means only one thing: one team will continue its win streak, and the other will meet its maker and falter to none other than their biggest rival.

The game remained relatively close until the midway point of the second half, when Cal’s perimeter savviness just proved to be too much for the visiting team to handle.

Our 2-6 in conference play may be inadequate, some may even say abysmal. But, we beat the Tree — that private funding, grade-inflating, all-around-worse-than-Berkeley Tree — and that’s all that really matters to me.

Both teams are wearily riding losing streaks in seasons that can be described as nothing more than perfect graveyards of buried hopes. Nevertheless, the blue and gold hold home court advantage this year and in a matchup like this one, that might mean everything.

Though there was not a decisive sweep of either team, Cal proved dominant against Stanford in two of the three games.

Bay Area rival Stanford will be traveling to Berkeley with the hopes of putting the Bears back into hibernation.