BERKELEY – Three members of the California beach volleyball team were named to the 2020 United States Beach Collegiate National Team announced Wednesday by USA Volleyball. Incoming freshman Brooke Buchner, recent graduate Iya Lindahl and rising senior Mima Mirkovic were all named to the team.
 
Twenty-nine women were named to the team and represent 11 colleges and universities from across the country. With three student-athletes, Cal is tied for the fourth-most representatives on the team with UCLA.
 
Players were nominated to the team by their coaches and selected based on their collegiate rankings. Training plans for the team are on hold while the country deals with the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Buchner will be joining the Bears in the fall from The Bishop's School in La Jolla, California where she was named to the All-CIF First Team in both 2017 and 2018 for her work with the indoor volleyball team. The Rancho Santa Fe native also earned the Coastal League Player of the Year and is a team captain. She recorded more than 1000 career kills in leading The Bishop's School to a coastal League Championship and three straight third place finishes in the CIF San Diego Open Division.
 
On the sand, Buchner played for the Wave Beach Club and is a member of USA Volleyball's U19 High Performance A1 Beach Volleyball team. This year, she has collected a third place finish at the BVCA 18U National Championship, the p1440 18U National Championship and the ISF 18U World Trials, where she represented the United States. Buchner also claimed a title at the 18U Pan Pacific Championship last year and was the only member of the class of 2020 to finish in the top three of the USAV HP U19 Championships in 2018.
 
Lindahl and Mirkovic were the top pair for the Bears this past season. The duo combined to go 9-1 and lead the bears to a 9-1 start and a no. 9 ranking before the season ended prematurely due to the ongoing pandemic. The duo clinched one of Cal's biggest wins as they won at the top spot vs. no. 5 USC in the Bear's final match before the shutdown.
 
Lindahl graduated from the no. 1 public school in the country earlier this month, in her Cal career she collected 65 wins while playing all over the Cal lineup. She has the second-most victories by a Cal player in school history. Her career winning percentage of .663, ranks sixth in school history and she is a member of the best two pairs in school history according to winning percentage. Lindahl was also a member of the 2019 Pac-12 All-Tournament Team.
 
Mirkovic currently ranks eighth in Cal history with 48 wins, 43 of those have come at the top spot in the lineup. She has the highest career winning percentage and the most career wins of any Bear at the no. 1 spot in the lineup. Mirkovic was also an honorable mention All-American in 2019 by both AVCA and Volleyball Magazine. She was also named first team All-Pac-12 in both 2018 and 2019.
 
Mirkovic has represented the United States internationally multiple times. She won a bronze medal at both the FIVB U19 World Championship and the FIVB U21 World Championship and qualified for another FIVB U21 World Championship.
 
The head coach for the women's team is 1996 Olympian and longtime beach volleyball high performance coach Barbra Fontana. She will be assisted by Hector Gutierrez, head coach of Texas Christian beach volleyball and Russell Brock, head coach of Louisiana State beach volleyball.