The Golden Bears (3-2) put the first goal on the board 20 minutes into the first half. Lara Kruggel dribbled into the circle and put a hard shot past Minutewomen goalkeeper Sam Carlino.

Carlino had a strong showing in net despite letting in two goals. She ended the day with four saves, with two coming in each half. On the other end of the field, Courtney Hendrickson stopped eight Massachusetts shots for California.

The Minutewomen (1-4) played strong defense throughout the first half and into the second half but were plagued by penalty corners towards the end of the game.

Eight minutes into the second half, Sarah Hawkshaw put UMass on the scoreboard with a fading shot into the back left corner of the Golden Bears’ net, which evened the game at 1-1.

Four minutes later, however, Andrea Earle of California tipped in a penalty corner and put the Golden Bears up one score.

Despite being down by a goal for the majority of the second half, the Minutewomen were relentless with their attack throughout the second half. They fired six shots on goal and were very close on numerous opportunities to equalizing the score.

Despite the loss, coach Carla Tagliente was pleased with several components of her team’s overall play.

“The score wouldn’t show it, in terms of generating attack, but we did generate a lot of attack, but we didn’t get anything inside of our circle,” said Tagliente.

Tagliente added that she was “pretty happy with the overall effort with what [UMass] did and what [it] executed.”

After Hawkshaw’s goal, there was a clear change of attitude exhibited by the Minutewomen. Tagliente said that she believed from that moment on, UMass’ spark was ignited by Hawkshaw’s overall effort.

“Her performance in the second half gave a boost of energy. She defensively was great coming up with a lot of balls and generating a lot of attack, and I think her goal was really great, Tagliente said. “There was a swing of energy our way…but we just need to capitalize on the rest of our opportunities.”

In the second half, California had four penalty corners, including the winning goal.

“It just came up off our flyer. Hannah has been running good lines on the fly, but it is kind of unusual that one will tip off you and over your shoulder,” Tagliente said. “But it happened, and it was a good shot and obviously it changed the game and was the game winner.”

Tagliente said she was pleased with the progress that the Minutewomen have made in regard to putting shots on goal, but she said she believes that in order to beat UMass Lowell on Sunday, her team needs to work on getting more opportunities inside its offensive zone.

Matthew Zackman can be reached at [email protected].