Women's soccer and California play to a tie
The Arizona State women's soccer remained at .500 in Pac-10 Conference play following a 1-1 tie with California on Sunday.
Arizona State (8-4-2, 2-2-1 Pac-10) held slight edges over California (7-4-5, 2-3-1 Pac-10) in shots (14-11) and corner kicks (8-7) in what turned out to be a very physical match as the two squads combined for 27 fouls (Cal 15, ASU 12).
"I think a tie is a fair result in the end," ASU head coach Kevin Boyd said following the game. "The stats were pretty close. I thought we played a little flat on the day. We were about 85 percent in the first half and about 75 percent after that. For some reason we did not fully engage today."
Neither team was able to generate any offense in the first half, a trend which carried over for both teams from their respective contests on Friday night when the Sun Devils fell to Stanford 3-0 and the Golden Bears were defeated by Arizona 1-0 in overtime.
California would be the first team to break its scoring drought when in the 49th minute junior midfielder Katrin Omarsdottir took a pass from freshman defender Emi Lawson and scored after firing a low, opposite-side shot from 15 yards to put Cal up 1-0.
ASU, which had a goal nullified in the first half because of a foul, would tie the game less than six minutes later when junior defender Kari Shane's free kick was served perfectly into the box where freshman forward Devin Marshall's header connected to tie the game at 1-1.
"We have been talking about how dangerous [Kari Shane] is and we should be rewarding her service and getting some goals out of it," Boyd said. "Devin got in there and knocked it in. It was a great goal by Devin and a great service by Kari."
Neither team would be able to get the go-ahead goal in the final 35 minutes of regulation and the two 10-minute overtime periods.
The best chances each team had came in the first overtime. First, Sun Devil senior forward Jill Shoquist had a shot on a header, but Cal goalkeeper Emily Kruger made the save. Then, later in the first overtime, Cal senior Megan Jesolva nearly got off a shot in front of the Sun Devil goal when the ball came her way following chaotic situation around the ASU net. However, Sun Devil freshman defender Josie Graybeal came over at the last second to break up the play.
After making 13 saves on Friday night, ASU sophomore goalkeeper Alyssa Gillmore added five more on Sunday while Kruger added eight for the Golden Bears.
Shoquist and Marshall tied for the ASU team lead with three shots each.
ASU returns to action next week when it goes on the road to face co-Pac-10 leader Oregon State on Friday (7 p.m. PT) and Oregon on Sunday (noon PT).