Cal Sports Report

Cal Wins Opener of Women's NCAA Soccer Tournament in OT

Courtney Boone's weird goal in the second overtime period sends Cal to a second-round game at No. 5 Arkansas

Jake Curtis

Courtney Boone
Courtney Boone / Photo by Ariel Nava
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Courtney Boone scored an unusual goal nearly six minutes into the second sudden-death overtime period to give Cal a 2-1 victory over 22nd-ranked Pepperdine Saturday afternoon in Malibu in the first round of the NCAA women’s soccer tournament.

That winning goal started with a corner kick by Julia Leontini. Boone charged forward and leaped to try to get a head on the ball, but she missed. However, as she was falling forward, her body parallel to the ground, the ball hit the back of Boone’s foot, directing it past Waves goaltender Jillian Medvecky for the winning goal.

It was the Golden Bears’ first win in the NCAA tournament since they defeated San Diego State 3-2 in Berkeley in 2014.  The last time the Bears won a first-round match on the road was in 2012, when it beat Pepperdine 1-0 in the same stadium that Saturday’s game was played in.

Cal (12-5-2) will face a major challenge in the second round when they travel to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to play fifth-ranked Arkansas.  The Razorbacks (15-2-2) are unbeaten at home this year (10-0-1) after beating Oklahoma State 4-0 in its first-round game of the NCAA tournament.

Cal’s game went into overtime after the Bears’ Alexis Wright scored the first goal of the game in the 33rd minutes and Pepperdine’s Peyton Leonard tied it with a second-half goal in the 59th minute.

The first 10-minute overtime period ended without a goal being scored, and Cal ended it with a “golden goal” 5:40 into the second overtime period.  And it was an odd goal indeed as it bounced off the back of Boone’s foot and into the back of the net for Boone's third goal of the season.

Leontini and Alex Klos got assists on the goal, which dropped Pepperdine’s record to 12-4-5.

Cal goalie Teagan Wy made five saves and allowed just the one goal. Cal outshot the Waves 15-10, but Pepperdine had six shots on goal to Cal’s five.

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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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