UCLA possibly lost two stars — Maxwell Griffin, last week's Soccer America Player of the Week, and U.S. U-20 player Tony Beltran — with serious injuries in its 3-1 loss to California Friday.
Griffin went down with a possible ACL injury in the third minute, and in the 20th minute, Beltran left the game after an ankle injury flared up.
Cal broke a 1-1 tie when Andrew Jacobson headed in a Nick Hatzke corner kick for the go-ahead goal. Javier Ayala-Hil added an insurance goal with 12 seconds left in the game on a breakaway.
''We played 88 minutes of today's game under difficult circumstances, with a possible season-ending injury to our top goal-scorer Maxwell Griffin, coupled with a possible serious injury to one of our top midfielders, Tony Beltran,'' said UCLAcoach Jorge Salcedo. ''Obviously, that made it very difficult. We fought back from a one-goal deficit, but in the end we just weren't good enough on the day.''