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Cal Sports Report

Cal's Heartbreaking Loss May Cost It a Berth in Men's NCAA Soccer Tournament

Cal loses to North Carolina on penalty kicks in the ACC men's soccer tournament
Jake Curtis|
Cal led most of the way against North Carolina
Cal led most of the way against North Carolina | Photo courtesy of Cal athletics

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California Golden Bears

When Jack Bowers’ final attempt of the penalty-kick shootout was saved by North Carolina goaltender Alan Rutkowski Wednesday night, Cal’s chances of reaching the men’s NCAA soccer tournament might have  disappeared as well.

Cal still has an outside shot at being selected for the NCAA tournament, but the odds are against the Bears having their name called when the field is announced on November 16 after their heartbreaking 4-3 loss to the Tar Heels in the penalty kicks round after finishing the game tied 1-1.

Cal was projected to be on the bubble of getting a berth in the 48-team NCAA tournament this week, so the Bears needed to win at least one game in the ACC tournament, and possibly more, to assure themselves a spot in the postseason.

And the 10th-seeded Bears nearly won their opening round of the conference tournament on Wednesday night on the road against seventh-seeded North Carolina.

Even though the Tar Heels dominated the game statistically, Cal (6-5-5) led most of the way after the Bears’ Malcolm Zalayet scored a pretty goal in the 23rd minute.

The Bears maintained that 1-0 lead until North Carolina’s Joschi Schelb scored the tying goal with just 7:56 remaining in the game.

The teams played two, 10-minute overtime periods without scoring, sending the game to penalty kicks to determine the winner.

Each team converted three penalty shots in the first four rounds, before the Tar Heels’ Schelb made his penalty kick to start the fifth and final round. Bowers needed to make his ensuing penalty kick to send it to a sixth round, but he was unable to get his shot past Rutkowski, giving North Carolina a 4-3 win in the penalty-kick phase after Zalayet, D’Andre Picket and Lucca Guimaraes had made their penalty kicks for Cal.

Cal will still watch the selection show, hoping to be picked.  The ACC is considered the best soccer conference in the country, and about half of the conference’s 15 soccer schools are expected to get berths in the NCAA tournament.

The Bears, who are 6-5-5 overall, were just 2-4-2 in ACC play, putting them in 10th place.  However, they have an RPI ranking of 33, which should be good enough to at least put them in consideration for a berth. However, it's likely Cal will be left out.

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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