Lucas Churchill

Cal closed its season with a 1-1 tie at home against Stanford. With this season in the rearview mirror, it can now look ahead to next fall.

Continuing its Pac-12 conference series on Sept. 19, the Bears look to collect a win in their stint away from the Bay against UCLA.

After falling to Pacific in an embarrassing 1-2 loss, the Bears are looking to come back stronger against their California counterpart on Sept. 16.

A reversal of the early season misfortunes has proven head coach Kevin Grimes’ philosophy to be true. The Bears are just a few steps away from becoming the team they set out to be during their abbreviated preseason.

By the 34th minute, down 3-0, the Bears seemed to accept defeat. Even in potential counter-attacking situations, players watched as haphazard, head-down runs down the sidelines amounted to nothing.

Cal heads right back into battle Saturday against defending conference champion Washington, which since 2011 has racked up a 12-3-2 record over Cal.

Without formal guidance from the Cal administration, the Cal men’s soccer team has been left to operate under its own accord.

Like many around the nation, the Cal men’s soccer team is facing new challenges and creating new responses to the necessities of shelter in place.

While the campus celebrations of that moment won’t start until next week, the Cal men’s soccer team (6-9-2) will set its sights on an early win in its own version of Big Game against the No. 6 Cardinal (11-2-4) on Thursday.

This past weekend, the Cal men’s soccer team was regrettably reminded of this lesson after suffering two losses to Washington and Oregon State, despite exerting significant offensive control in both games.