You probably watched the Cal football team win its first road game of the season against Minnesota.

If you did, you saw an extremely talented (and very tough) receiver in Eric Decker. He was the Gophers’ go-to target all game, even though the Bears were well aware that Decker was Minnesota’s No. 1 (read: only) threat.

Anyway, Daily Cal staff photographer Nathan Yan traveled to Minneapolis and brought back a few eye-pleasing photos to share with us.

This week’s “Points and Shoot” image, in which Mike Mohamed and Brett Johnson attempt to take Decker down, is one of them.

Cal opens Pac-10 play against Oregon this Saturday in Eugene, Ore.

For more coverage of the gridiron, head over to the Daily Cal football blog, Extra Points.

For more photos from this week in Bears athletics, check out our weekly slideshow.

Enjoy!

In light of the recent National Championship Week, I decided to meet up with Katie Morgan and find out what she has been up to since winning the 2008 NCAA pole vault crown.

So far life has been pretty good for the senior; after winning the title she had some down time and even had the chance to head out to England to meet her brother.

Now she is back in school at Berkeley, hitting the books and doing some light offseason workouts.

Our interview actually took place right before Katie was to jump in the pool for a swim. She admittedly is not quite sure what to do once in the water, but nevertheless swimming keeps her off the feet and away from potentially injuring her troublesome knee.

And oh, by the way, if you didn’t know what she looked like before, you’ve probably at least caught a glimpse of Katie. She along with the other Cal champs were featured on banners prominently located across campus. Katie has been getting tons of flack from her teammates about the banners and may in fact be glad that they have been since taken down.

Slated this Saturday for the Cal men’s water polo team is the annual alumni match, which follows a more serious game against the Pacific Tigers. For anyone hoping to see a fun ol’ water polo match with absolutely nothing but bragging rights riding on the line, it will be an event worth watching.

The game is always a highly-anticipated affair for both sides: the young’uns have a chance to push around some out-of-shape alums while the older fellas get to relive their glory days.

As has been tradition, coach Kirk Everist will don a Speedo and head back into the pool, but don’t expect the two-time Olympian to be treated with any respect from his players. In a quick sit-down, senior co-captains Trent Calder and Frank Reynolds unveiled their game plan for keeping Everist in check; expect a few cheap shots from the pair as well as some entertaining trash-talk (fyi in the video Calder’s description of Everist is PG-13).

The 2008 NCAA Division I Men’s Tennis Championships kick-off today with No. 31 Cal (12-10, 4-3 in the Pac-10) taking on No. 36 Boise State (21-11, 2-2 in the WAC). The match will be played at Marks Stadium, USC’s home court because the Trojans are the high seed of their side of the bracket.
The Bears and Broncos are both hard working teams and it will come down to whichever team makes less mistakes. (Click here to read more…)

As most of you should know by now, Cal lost 88-66 to UCLA. The game wasn’t even really as close as the final score. In the first 10 minutes the Bears just struggled to get the ball up the court, committing 10 turnovers in their first 19 possessions. Darren Collison’s hounding defense, coupled with some big minutes from Lorenzo Mata-Real in the first half on the defensive end (he had four blocks for the game) allowed the Bruins to rack up easy transition buckets and give themselves a big cushion going into halftime.

That might’ve been the last time we see Ryan Anderson in a Cal uniform, unless the Bears are invited to the NIT or the CBI (whatever that is) on Sunday. Anderson scored 15 points and grabbed seven boards in what might have been his collegiate finale, but he never really got going.After the game, he talked a lot about how Cal’s poor shot selection doomed it against the defensive-minded Bruins. (Click here to read more…)